


Devil John

by AlessNox



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dark John, Demon John, Demon dubcon, Devil!John, Dirty as I could make it, Hell, Humiliation, Identity, Knife Play, M/M, Mary Watson - Freeform, Masturbation, Repression, Sexual Fantasy, Suicide Attempt, Transformation, raw emotions, selfawareness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:31:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlessNox/pseuds/AlessNox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is dead, but that's not the end for him. Not when he has one soul left to corrupt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Commission

John opens his eyes.

He's been shot. He remembers the shock of it. The punch of it. Close range. Right through his axillary artery. Blood rushing down the front of his shirt. His left arm out of action. Luckily, John shoots his gun with his right. A red hole right between the man's eyes. The brick wall splattered with a chaos of blood. John laughs.

His last thought is the sensation of his finger on the trigger, but now his gun is not in his hand.

Where has it gone?

Where is he?

 

His eyes are open but all that he can see is a deep grey mist. A space develops around him. There is a floor, grey tile or marble? It must be marble. Black veins run through it like rivers seen from space. Above him there is only cloud. Before him, nothing but the mist undulating like the ripples on the surface a stormy sea.

Where is he?

 

He expected to wake up in a hospital. No, to be honest he didn't expect to wake up at all. The wound was too bad, too close to his heart. He would bleed out in minutes. His shot was a last ditch effort to win, to beat the other guy before he died of the wound.

Died. Yes, he should have died. The wound should have been fatal.

 

The mist becomes thicker. John looks down at his hands. There is no gun, no blood, no powder burns, no evidence at all of what he knows is true, and his shoulder... There is no wound in his shoulder, not even from the first time he was shot. He touches the skin remembering the feel of the bullet. He has removed bullets before, as a surgeon.

The way the skin gave the first time he pressed his knife down on living human flesh. The sparkle of the blade as it touched the flesh. Drawing a line very straight. Cutting through the layers, first skin, then fat, then muscle. Blood pooling up through the flesh. The power of life and death in his hands.

The power. The sheer power over human life that he had held in his hands. He was addicted to it. Losing it after that first bullet struck in Afghanistan, had been one of the worst losses of his life. To be a surgeon, and then suddenly to not be one anymore. To be nothing.

When he could no longer use the knife, he had fallen back on the gun. Years of sports and accuracy games all through his life had made him a crack shot. He amazed others with his precision and skill. He had shot him right between his eyes. Perhaps slightly more to the right. The bullet wound had thrown off his aim. He wanted to do it again, to get it perfect this time. The thought welled into his chest like desire, it burned under his skin like lust.

 

Why is it so dark here?

His wound is gone now, but there had been an awful lot of blood before. What happened to the wound?

 

“Are you done now?” A voice calls out, a lilting voice that rises and falls like music. “Have you realized yet, or are you still in denial?”

“Hello? Where am I? I can't see you.”

“It's hard for you, I know, but I would have expected that as a doctor you would realize the truth sooner rather than later.”

The voice sounds familiar, male, a bit high pitched, sing-song. _No, it can't be._

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am. You just don't...want...to believe it. You don't want to see it either. I haven't seen this much smoke since the first time I burned down my orphanage.”

“Moriarty? But you're dead!”

“Yes, I am...Ah! You almost see it, but your mind is fighting it. You have such a titanic skill at denial, don't you John?”

“Denying what!” John barks. The light darkens. “What are you doing with the lights?”

“Nothing Johnny boy. It's you who is doing it.”

“I'm not dead!”

“You are, that's why you won't see me. When you realize the truth, it will all become clear.”

“This is a trick!”

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. You are a doctor. Tell me the odds that you survived that wound. Tell me the odds that you could have survived it even if you had been in an operating room when you had been shot. Now, honestly John. Your denial was cute before, but now it's becoming downright insulting.” He frowns, tilting his head. “You shot that man, and when his blood was splattered all over that wall, what was the next thing you did? Come now, Johnny boy, you remember. What did you do?”

“I laughed,” John whispered.

“You what? I can't hear you,” the man said in a bouncing, merry tone.

“I laughed!”

“Yes, you did! Why?”

“Because it was funny. Because... despite him cornering me, despite him...killing me, I had won. I had beat him!”

The fog rolled away and John found himself standing on a marble floor, at his side James Moriarty stood in the same grey suit that he had worn at the trial. He grinned evilly.

“Where am I, and why are you here?” John asks.

“Where am I?” Moriarty mocks, his face forming an expression of extreme worry before returning to a wicked smile. “You are dead. You killed a man in cold blood and then you laughed about it. Where do you think you are then, Johnny Boy?”

“In heaven?”

“Don't make me laugh.”

“In Hell.”

“There you go, John Watson. I knew you could do it. What a wonderful eternity we'll have together. I have so much planned for you.” Moriarty grins showing the jagged points of his teeth, then everything goes black.

 


	2. Hell

John wakes to find that things have changed. Instead of marble, the floor is made of dirty concrete. His arms and legs are constricted by shackles chained to the wall behind his back. He's slumped on the floor. His arms pulled over his head. He sits up and looks around.

The room is dark, illuminated by a bare yellow incandescent light hanging down from a pale cord that has been tied in a hangman's noose. Light pools around his feet in a circle fading away into blackness. The world outside of this little circle of light is darker than a starless night, blacker than a coal mine.

Along the wall, he sees small black spiders scurrying around. They sit just outside the light. Their red eyes glowing, their bodies hidden in obscurity.

“Back with us now are you, Johnny?” sings a voice with an Irish accent. “It's about time.”

John watches as Moriarty walks slowly toward him, defiling the space with his very presence. He's wearing the Westwood now, under a black knee-length coat with a blood red lining. His eyes bore into John's naked flesh and he sneers.

John looks down at his hairy chest. His bullet wound from Afghanistan is back now. He pushes to his feet, not wanting to show vulnerability to an enemy. His bare back scrapes against the coarse wall and starts to bleed.

“Moriarty! This is the kind of thing that I'd expect of someone like you. I knew it had to be a trick. Where are we, and why are you holding me here?”

Moriarty rolls his head back with a sigh. Then he stomps around in a tiny circle bobbing his head from side to side in frustration as he cries, “Whores and Devils! Are we back to that again, Johnny Boy? I SO hate repeating myself. Tell me again...” Moriarty whips his head around to glare at John as he yells, “WHERE ARE WE?”

His voice hits John like a slap, and he falls to his knees.

He punctuates each word. “WHERE! ARE! WE!”

“In Hell,” John says quietly. “Well, at least it's hot enough to be Hell. It's so muggy, I can't help sweating, but… why am I in chains? I wasn't the last time.”

“Why am I in chains?” James Moriarty repeats in a mocking voice, his lips pursing in pretended distress. He shakes his head saying, “I'm disappointed in you. I'm disappointed in you, Johnny. So slow to realize the truth. That was always your greatest problem, but at this rate, we'll be AGES! Sherlock might die before you realize what's going on.

John's eyes sharpen, focusing on Moriarty as he says calmly, “Sherlock is dying?”

Moriarty yells, “OF COURSE HE'S DYING! He's mortal.”

“And we aren't?”

Moriarty's shoulders drop and his mouth falls open. He tilts his head to the side explaining as if to a child. “No, we are not mortal. Or at least this portion of us isn't. Your body is dead, of course, but this part of you remains.”

John licks his lips as he looks down at his hands. “So, I died, and you chained me here...”

“No. I didn't.”

“Then why…?”

“Why are you in chains? You tell me! You did this.”

John narrows his eyes, “Are you telling me that I chained myself to the wall?”

“I told you. We don't HAVE bodies. The wall, the chains, the spiders. They are just constructs of your ignorant, pedestrian mind. You are in chains because you believe that you should be in chains. GUILT chains you.”

“Why doesn't it chain you then?”

“Do you honestly believe that I feel guilt about anything I've done? I only regret NOT killing you when I had the chance. You are so incredibly THICK!”

John drops his head into his hands. “But... Hell? I never believed in it.”

“Do you think that the Cosmos _cares_ what a moron like you believes? You have sinned and you feel regret, so you have come to this place to either work it off somehow, or to wait the long eternity until the memory of your life passes away.”

“I don't understand.”

“Magnussen was right about you. You should put that on a t-shirt. See, there it is.”

John looks down to find that he is now wearing a black T-shirt with white letters that say _'I don't understand.'_ He doesn't have to look to know that the back of the shirt says, _'I still don't understand'_. He glances up meeting Moriarty's piercing stare.

“Only now believing it are you? Denial… If that's not a sin, it should be.”

“Magnussen, is he here?”

“Of course he is. You don't honestly think that he'd go to the other place do you?”

“So he's working off his sins is he?”

Moriarty shakes his head, “No. Regret is not his poison. He's chained to a cliff over a stormy sea. Will probably stay there until every trace of him is blown away by the wind. And good riddance. He was a horrible bore. No class. No class at all. I was so incredibly overjoyed to find that it was Sherlock Holmes who killed him! It made me certain that he was truly meant to join us here.”

“Sherlock is NOT coming here,” John says.

“Of course he is. He killed a man.”

“He did it to save me and my wife. He had good intentions. He doesn't regret it.”

“Doesn't he? Doesn't he regret saving your...wife? Oh, you are an idiot, but you do surprise me from time to time. I could never have imagined a hell for Sherlock worse than the one that you made when you married that assassin. Oh John, you are so wicked!” Moriarty laughs evilly.

“Sherlock won't come here, he won't!” John says shaking his head.

“There's that denial again. Do you honestly think that Sherlock would enjoy heaven? He'd be bored in a day. Besides, he hardly knows anyone there.”

“No, he won't come here. He can't! Sherlock doesn't deserve to be tortured for all eternity.”

“But you do, don't you Johnny? That's why you added the chains and the spiders. Yes, you determine the nature of your hell. You know that you do deserve this place.” Moriarty leans over to whisper in John's ear, “You filthy  _Murderer_.”

“No. There's been a mistake...I'm a good man.”

Moriarty turns his head from side to side. “Considering where we are, that doesn't sound very convincing.”

“So, I can escape this place? Work off this guilt, somehow? How do I do it? Do I have to do good things or something like that?”

“Good things?” Moriarty says grinning. He's on the edge of breaking out laughing again. “Too late for that, Johnny boy. If you wanted to do good things, you should have done them while you were alive. Hell works in a … rather different way.”

“You evil... you... You Devil!”

“Exactly. And you will become a Devil too John. It is by embracing our true nature that we bring order to the universe, and I have a special job for you, Johnny boy.”

“A job?”

“Yes, you lucky boy. You will go to Earth and make sure that Sherlock Holmes' soul is truly and utterly damned.”

“I'm going back to Earth?”

“Yes. To tempt Sherlock.”

“But if demons can go to Earth and bother mortals, why didn't you do it ages ago?”

“It's not that simple. You have to be accepted by the person first, allowed in, so to speak.”

“And you think that Sherlock wouldn't have accepted you?”

“On the contrary. I was certain that he would welcome me with open arms.”

“Then why didn't you go to damn him? Why didn't you go back to Earth?”

Moriarty sighs. “There is nothing that I would enjoy more than going to Earth and torturing Sherlock Holmes until he dies, but unfortunately Hell is not a place that has been designed to give us what we want. Why else do you think that I'd waste my time with an imbecile like you? I want his soul. I want it DARK and EVIL and DAMNED, and you are the one creature who can do it. You will tempt him and curse him, and torture him until he begs for death! I want him to walk into Hell singing. I want to watch him dance!”

“I won't help you.”

“Didn't you hear me. Hell doesn't give us a choice?”

Moriarty rushes forward and pins John to the wall. He pulls out a flask and pours something down John's throat. John tries to resist, but Moriarty tightens his grip pressing John's neck against the wall until he swallows.

“It burns!” John screams.

“Yes. Beautiful isn't it?”

“What… what have you given me?”

“It's called _Black Dragon Blood_. It's a form of liquor we have here.”

“What's happening to me?”

“Your regret, your inhibitions, that iron-control that you use to hold yourself back from everything that you truly want. That is burning away.”

“You're turning me evil?”

“Don't be ridiculous. You are already evil, John. It's just...letting the evil out. The pain is just its way of getting revenge for all of the times that you've rejected it. You never simply let yourself go, did you John? All those wants. All those secret desires finally set free. Glorious, isn't it?”

John leans back against the wall with his head against his chest. Slowly, his breathing steadies. He keeps his eyes on the floor as he asks in a steady voice.

“Why am I still chained?”

“What chains? There are no chains. Not anymore. You're finally free.”

John looks up at Moriarty with eyes as black as death. The chains are gone, and the room seems perfectly ordinary, not dark at all. He rises nimbly to his feet, cracking his shoulders as he stretches.

“Good, good, excellent!” Moriarty says clapping his hands.

“How do I get there… to Earth?” John says, his voice having dropped an octave.

“Oh, it will happen naturally, any time now. You'll just appear at the flat. Your time is limited. The supernatural ones like ourselves burn too brightly to stay above for long, but you should have enough time to do what needs doing to Sherlock. Such a touching reunion. I wish that I could watch.”

“So, I don't need you anymore?”

“No.”

John leaps forward then putting his hands on either side of Moriarty's neck. He twists, and there is a sharp crack. James Moriarty crumbles to the ground, his head bent at an odd angle, his black eyes looking at nothing. John smiles and turns away.

“Excellent,” a voice says. John turns back to see that although he is still broken and on the ground, Moriarty is talking. “I knew I made the right choice. You were born to be a demon, John. Sherlock won't know what hit him."

Then Moriarty smiles. It looks disconcerting on a body with its head sitting at a right angle to its neck, disturbing even, but John doesn't have time to think more about it as everything around him vanishes and he is lost in darkness yet again.


	3. Ghost

John breathes out and the world materializes around him painting itself in, shadow by shadow, until the room is revealed in shimmering shades of darkness. He is at 221B Baker Street. Home.

Breathing in he smells familiar scents: The elegant dust which settles on the bookshelves and drapes. The odd chemical tang of one of Sherlock's forgotten experiments. The chalky taste of bone. The traitorous smell of cigarette smoke.

He catches his image in the mirror. His face is dark, shadowed, threatening. His black eyes shine like moonlight on an obsidian knife. He doesn't look human.

Black Dragon Blood burns when it goes down, but it settles inside John's bones as a warm heat that glows like anger. He feels dangerous.

He frowns, and the darkness grows deeper. He narrows his eyes and his body becomes shadow. John realizes then that he can control his appearance. It must be one of the effects of being a demon. Things are different, like breathing. He doesn't need to breathe anymore. He breathes in anyway just for the silky feel of it.

He crosses his arms, and darkness closes around him like smoke, with only his eyes shining through. It is intoxicating! His very thoughts have the power to manipulate matter. He wants to investigate it. Discover all of the things that he can do, until suddenly, he realizes that he is not alone.

Sherlock is sitting in his chair. He is so still and so quiet that John didn't notice him at first. John wonders if he has seen him, but Sherlock never turns around. He's slouching in his chair, shoes on his feet, his hair freshly groomed.

What is he waiting for?

He's wearing the white shirt that he wore the day he met John and Mary in the restaurant. The shirts that he buys for himself are tight, the buttons almost popping off of his chest, the nipples peeking through. Mycroft bought this shirt. It looks modest in comparison. John floats closer.

Sherlock seems to wake then. He sits straighter in his chair before rolling up his sleeve. It is only when Sherlock reaches over to pick up a bit of rubber tubing that John notices, a syringe on the table beside him. The empty bottle next to it reads. DIAMORPHINE HYDROCHLORIDE. Morphine!

John growls.

Sherlock freezes. He looks around, but he apparently can't see John in the gloom.

“Back on the drugs again, are we?” John asks.

Sherlock's face pales, “John?”

“I should have guessed. Last time you didn't last a month after I'd gone.”

“John!” The look of hope on his face would be laughable if it wasn't so brief. “No, no...it can't be. You're dead.” Sherlock falls back in his chair. His arm flopping down. “Mindpalace playing tricks again, but it won't stop me this time. Mycroft is one step away from having me locked up somewhere. Time to do this.”

Sherlock pulls up his sleeve and rubs his arm before picking up the tubing from the floor. John floats closer. He looks down as Sherlock prepares himself for the injection and he laughs. Sherlock looks around the room.

“John?”

“Who else?”

“Where...?”

“Quite a lot of Morphine you have there. You must have become very tolerant of the drug if you have to use that dosage. How long was I gone?”

Sherlock drops his arm again, the tubing dropping back onto the floor as he says, “Eight months, two weeks, and four days.”

“Eight months, huh? For me it seemed shorter. Even so, that's much too much Morphine, unless you are planning to kill yourself.”

Sherlock jumps. John tilts his head to the side and looks closely at him, “You were, weren't you? You were planning on killing yourself today.” John smirks. Then he laughs. His laughter echoes around the flat rising to the point of cacophony. Sherlock turns from side to side but he still can't see him. “John, where are you?”

“I'm here,” John says willing himself to become visible. He can tell that Sherlock sees him by the way that his pupils focus on him. He seems to have stopped breathing entirely.

John smiles the smile of the damned. “Idiot! To think that I was sent here to get you only to find that you were already on your way down to Hell. What a waste of my time.”

 

Sherlock reaches out a shaking hand. His fingertips passing right through John's shoulder. “A ghost?”

“Am I?” John says. “That would be a fucking disappointment. I had it in my mind to have a little fun while I was back. Can't do that if I'm just a ghost.”

“There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Then why the Hell did you bring it up?”

 

Sherlock shakes his head and sits back in his chair. “No, this is simply a hallucination. John is gone.” He turns his face away, but John can tell that he's watching him out of the corner of his eye. John leans down so that his lips are almost touching Sherlock's ear. He breathes out and Sherlock shivers.

“Not even a year,” John whispers. “Did you miss me that much?” He blows a breath across those impossible cheekbones and whispers. “Sher-lock".

Sherlock closes his eyes, “But you can't be John. John is dead.”

The edge of his lip curves up as he says, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Sherlock, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Sherlock turns his head to look into John's black eyes. John straightens. “Then again, I don't know much about what goes on in Heaven. Not exactly my area. But you... you are such a frustratingly irritating, impossible man, Sherlock. You make me want to reach out and crush your bones to dust.”

John reaches out and takes Sherlock's wrist in his hand. His fingers wrap around Sherlock's pale wrist bones, cool flesh making contact with warm, and John looks up in shock to see Sherlock looking back at him with an identical expression of surprise. Then Sherlock reaches out and lays his hand over John's heart. They stay that way for what seems like an eternity, but must be only seconds, then Sherlock pulls away.

“You have no heartbeat,” he says.

John steps back feeling strangely bereft. “Funny,” he says, “I always thought that you were the one without a heart.”

Sherlock stares at John with trepidation and excitement. “Why are you here?”

“I came to take you back with me to Hell.”

Sherlock simply stares at him for a second in fear. The fear never leaves his face, but he says, “Okay. Take me then.”

John smiles, “Can it really be this easy? I ask and you just say _'yes_ '? John falls down on his knees and puts his hands on Sherlock's thighs as he places his face directly in front of Sherlock's. Sherlock stares open-mouthed like a child.

“First you must say that you accept me.”

“I accept you.”

The darkness deepens around them then, caressing John's shoulders as thunder rolls in the distance. He leans forward peering into Sherlock's skull with his dark, dark eyes. “Say that you will do as I command?”

“I will do whatever you command.”

“And you will follow me willingly into Hell.”

Sherlock pauses, licking his lips before saying, “Yes.”

 

John rises to his feet and laughs aloud. “So easy! I never understood what a pushover you were. All those years following wherever you've led. I should have had you follow me instead! You would have, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you!”

John turns then and walks toward the fireplace.

“Truth is, I'm not ready to go back to Hell yet. Dead boring that place. There are so many things that I want to do here that I never did when I was alive. Funny thing that. It wasn't until I died that I realized how much I had never lived.” He turns his head to watch as Sherlock rises to his feet. “Besides,” he says with a predatory look, “We have to damn you good and proper. You must do what I say. On the other hand, Obedience is a virtue isn't it? Can't say I'm up on all of the blessings and sins. It was ages since catechism.”

John reaches out and takes the dagger from the mantle with one hand. He walks over and drives it into the wall, then he pulls it down tearing through the wallpaper to reveal a layer beneath it. Red, moire print, tacky. He looks over his shoulder at Sherlock.

“You still don't believe I'm real?” John says walking slowly toward Sherlock. “But this knife is real. You know that. Even when I'm gone you'll see the mark that I made on the wall and know that I was here, and that I will always come back for you.”

“You're leaving?” Sherlock said, brows furrowing.

“Moriarty explained it to me. Demons can't last long on Earth. We burn too bright, or too dark. Some kind of balance of the universe thing. I will go away, but I will always be coming back for you. Remember that Sherlock, I will always come back for you.”

John places the tip of the dagger against Sherlock's throat. He is breathing rapidly, almost panting. John tilts his head to look down, and then up again.

“Like this do you? The knife. Shall I cut you then? Leave a message on you that you can't ignore? I'm a surgeon. I can do it very neatly. You never knew how good a surgeon I was. I was fuckin' amazing.” John's head tilts to the side as he looks at Sherlock's throat. He licks his lips. "Molly used to say that you always said the wrong things. I could fix that for you. Cut out your voice box.” John moves the knife in a circle over his throat before pulling it lower down his chest. “Or, I could cut out your heart. That's what you always wanted isn't it. To not have a heart.”

John positions the knife above the place where the top button holds Sherlock's shirt together and pulls down, tearing the cloth. “I never liked that shirt. It makes you look like a priest. You aren't a priest, no matter what Irene Adler says.

John cuts off the first button with a flick of his wrist. It bounces on the floor and rolls away.

“You like to pretend that you're asexual, but you're not. There are some people who can still get a rise out of you.” He glances down at Sherlock's lap. Then he fits the knife into the next buttonhole and twists popping off the second button.

“You like to pretend that you don't have a heartbeat, like me, but...”

John pulls the knife down sharply, ripping the shirt open to the belt revealing Sherlock's pale chest, and a chain holding John's round dog-tags. He touches the tip of the knife to the metal disks so that they jingle. Sherlock sucks in a breath, his exposed nipples standing tall and pink in the cool evening air.

“Look at that! Sentiment. I can't condemn you for that though. You and Mycroft are the only ones who consider that a sin. But I can do something with covetousness. That IS a sin. One of the ten, isn't it...wanting someone else's spouse? The way you looked at me as I was marrying Mary. Like I was the only thing in the world that you wanted. Like you were dying without me. I saw. How could I not?”

His skin began to flush pink as he stuttered, “But John… I never said anything, I never did anything.”

“I was there, Sherlock. I may have been drunk, but even I could see that bulge in your pants when I touched your knee on stag night. It doesn't take a genius to realize that you wanted me, that you'd wanted me for a long time.”

“John I...” Sherlock begins, but John rubs his right thumb across Sherlock's chest, and he has to bite his lip. John takes a nipple between his fingers and pulls. Sherlock shudders.

Sherlock's other hand rises up to take John's arm, but it passes through it while John bares his teeth yelling, “Did I say that you could touch me?” Sherlock pulls back crouching away from John as he spits out the words. “You've accepted me, but I never said that I would accept you! Worthless piece of shit that you are. Did you think it was okay to lust after me? Your thoughts were dirty. You soiled me. Did you think that I wasn't violated just because I didn't see or hear you? Show me how you did it. I want to watch this time. Prove yourself before I'll take you with me. Open your trousers.”

Sherlock blinks. “What?”

John lowers his voice barking the command as he would if he were still in the army “I said, open your trousers!”

Sherlock jumps to his feet. his hands are on his belt before he is even conscious of moving them.

“Drop them, around your ankles. Good. Now your pants.” Sherlock struggles to get his clothes off while John circles around him, his dark eyes boring into Sherlock's pale flesh in a way that the dagger hadn't...yet.

“Touch it!”

Sherlock wraps his hand around his penis and holds it there, waiting.

“Now pull.”

Sherlock pulls on his cock and moans arching his back. His balls already starting to rise. John puts the base of the knife to his lips as he watches. He bites the metal. Then he sneers.

“You hypocrite! You liar. Married to your work. Not your area. How many times did you criticize me for expressing sentiment while all the time you felt like this?”

Sherlock pulls faster. His eyes opening to devour John.

“All of those times you scoffed at me and my girlfriends while you were secretly calling my name into the darkness. You were never honest with your emotions. You were never honest with that part of yourself. Drop your hand, let me see it.”

Sherlock pulls his hand away and John bends over to stare. Sherlock's cock rises under his gaze and a drop of precome slowly slips out of the U-shaped slit. Just as it is about to drop, John sticks out his tongue to taste it, but before he can, Sherlock's knees buckle and he falls to the floor, feet tangled in his trousers.

John chuckles. “Go on now. I'm here. Come for me Sherlock. Show me how much you miss me.”

Sherlock writhes on the floor, his hand jerking up and down as John steps over him. Sherlock's eyes widen as John lowers his foot onto his throat and presses down. Sherlock gasps, but his hand never stops moving as John continues pressing, cutting off his airway. Sherlock's hand flies faster and faster until a stream of semen bursts from him. Sherlock's hips arch up off of the floor, his buttocks clenching tight together. John raises his foot then releasing Sherlock's throat and he sucks in a deep breath as stream after stream of semen erupts from his body.

John kneels down beside Sherlock watching as he desperately tries to catch his breath. He smiles, his eyes locked in Sherlock's frantic gaze. “Good, Sherlock. That was a good start,” he says before slowly fading away leaving Sherlock half-naked, cold, and soiled on the worn rug of 221B.

 


	4. Chains

When John opens his eyes, he is chained to the wall again, but now there are even more chains. Some holding his ankles. Some making an X across his chest. Some holding his neck firmly against the wall. He tries to move, and they rattle.

He hears footsteps coming from the distance. He struggles, but he cannot get free. Then he sees Moriarty enter into the circle of light.

“Oh John, my dear. Looks like you've been a BAD boy.”

"What is this? Why are there more chains? And the spiders, I thought I saw one the size of my hand this time."

“I told you, Johnny boy, you make the nature of your hell. You must have done something on Earth that you are ashamed of.”

“But, the Dragon Blood. I didn't feel ashamed about any of it. I was doing my job, doing what a demon does. I was acting as the Devil. Isn't that my role now? Isn't that what I am supposed to do?”

A slight smile crosses Moriarty's lips. He looks down at his shoes. “Oh John. Even in Hell you're guided by public opinion. You want to do what's right. Look around you. This is the result of your actions, more chains!”

“But I didn't feel any guilt then...”

“But you do now. Every action you do has a consequence whether you want it to or not. Your soul knows that you did wrong. Tell me all about it Johnny. What did you do? Did you hurt him? Did you make him cry? Give me all of the gory details!” Moriarty leans over him rubbing his hands together and grinning. His eyebrows rise and John would swear that he sees tiny horns peeking through his slicked-back black hair.

“Weren't you watching?” John says. “I thought that you'd have a front row seat. I thought that it would be broadcast on Hell telly like football.”

“Wouldn't that be rich? I would love to watch you humiliate Sherlock Holmes. I would give half of my soul to see him squirm, but I told you, Hell doesn't work that way. So tell me, John. Could he see you? Did Sherlock Holmes know that you were there? What did you look like?”

“My eyes were black. He couldn't see me at first but then... then he could, and I could touch him, but he couldn't touch me.”

Moriarty closed his eyes and licked his lips in pleasure as he imagined what must have happened. “Delicious. I so wish that I could have seen him. Did you make him do something… bad?” His voice lowered an entire octave on the last word, and flames seemed to glow in his eyes.

“He accepted me. He swore that he would follow me into Hell if I asked.”

“Good, good. That's marvelous!”

“So am I done now?”

Moriarty looked surprised. “Are you done? Why would you think that you were done?”

“You said that if I got him to accept me. If I had him willingly say that he would go to Hell...”

Moriarty's laugh echoed around them like a cannon blast. “Oh no, Johnny. You're not done yet. You have all these chains to pay for. What you did only made it worse.”

“But I thought that I was supposed to….”

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny you are such a soldier. Always following orders. You are so held by the expectations of others that you hardly even know what it is that _you_ want. You've never ever let yourself do what you wanted to do. It is always what others expect of you. Let me see … Isn't this how it goes?” Moriarty contorted his body and face into a harsh parody of John's as he said “ ' _I'm glad no one saw_ _that_ _. People might talk.'_ or _'I don't want people thinking that you're a fraud!'_ or my favorite, _'I'm NOT gay'_.” Moriarty laughed at that last one so hard that he ended up rolling on the floor.

“What are you saying? I thought that I was supposed… I don't know what I'm expected to do!”

“And that, Johnny boy, is why you are still in Hell.” Moriarty climbs to his feet and brushes the dust off his suit. “And you'd better improve soon. This place is simply _murder_ on the Westwood.”

“But, I did what you said.”

“Such a good pet. Always following orders. Even _my_ orders.” Moriarty shakes his head from side to side. “You're still expecting someone else to tell you what is right and what is wrong. I'm not going to tell you what you need to do to end this hell of a prison that you've created for yourself." The last part of his speech is delivered in a lilting, sing-song voice. "You have to figure that one out **All. On. Your. Own.** ”

All of a sudden, tears fill John's eyes. He can't see, but he can hear the slap of those expensive shoes against the concrete as Moriarty walks away. They stop as Moriarty turns back again to say. “Good Luck on the next one, Johnny, and please give Sherlock my love.”

His footsteps continue to get quieter and quieter as the tears roll down John's cheeks like rain.

 


	5. Tea

The change, when it comes, is sudden. First he is in the darkness listening to the rattle of chains, next he is at the flat at Baker street. This time it is day, and the change in brightness makes him momentarily blind, so he hears Mrs Hudson before he sees her.

“Honestly, Sherlock, you can be such a child at times. I'm just going to the Hay festival with Mrs Turner. The way you are going on, you'd think I was leaving for India!”

“But I'm an invalid? What if someone comes to the door? How will I get down all of those stairs in this cast?”

“The same way you got up _'all of those stairs'_ when you refused your brother's offer of a nurse.”

“I don't need _another_ spy in Baker street.”

“How dare you call me a spy simply because I informed your brother that you had almost got yourself killed again? For that remark, young man, you can make your own tea!”

Mrs Hudson is wearing a cream colored coat and matching hat over her usual plum dress. She has her keys in her hand. Checking up on Sherlock before she leaves, no doubt. The room is tidy and neat, not like the last time where the neglect was evident in every cobweb and misplaced article. Now things are back to normal. The room has been recently cleaned, and despite her words, Mrs Hudson has laid out a tray of biscuits on the table beside Sherlock.

He is sitting in his chair wearing a striped dressing gown and pajamas. His right foot is encased in a plaster cast. The pajama bottoms having been slit to allow them to fit over it.

John stands beside the fireplace. He thinks that he must be invisible because Mrs Hudson doesn't appear to notice him, so when she suddenly turns to face him. He stops fiddling with the pictures on the mantle and puts his hands behind his back.

“And Sherlock, why won't you let me fix that ripped wallpaper? It's such an eyesore!”

“I've told you, Mrs Hudson. It's for an experiment.”

“Well, I wish you'd put your experiments in your bedroom rather than the sitting room.”

John glances over his shoulder realizing that he's standing in front of the place where he had torn the wallpaper with the dagger. The edges of the paper are frayed, and the underlying red fabric is a bit faded. A deep groove is scored in the plaster where he had cut it. When John turns back, he notices Sherlock's eyes upon him. Whereas Mrs Hudson had apparently seen only the wall, Sherlock appears to see him clearly. His eyes are focused on his, and John can't look away.

“If you really need the help, I could come home early…. Sherlock, are you listening to me? You could at least look at me when I'm talking instead of staring at that wall. Honestly, you'd think it had sprouted horns and a tail.”

“What, Mrs Hudson?”

“I said that I could come back early.”

He shooed her away with his hand. “No need! Go away! I'm busy now!”

“Sherlock!”

He turns to face her then smiling a large fake smile. “Have a nice trip, Mrs Hudson, and don't worry about me. I'll be more that fine on my own.” Then he turns back to look at John.

Mrs Hudson stares at Sherlock for a moment wondering what he's up to, then a horn sounds. “Oh, well. That's the taxi waiting. Goodbye Sherlock.”

Sherlock waves a hand awkwardly in her direction without looking. His eyes, and his attention are on John.

When the door downstairs shuts and Mrs Hudson is gone, Sherlock says, “You came back.”

“And you didn't kill yourself. Unless, that injury was an attempt….”

“No. I jumped off of a bus.”

“A bus?”

“A moving bus. I was chasing a child molester. I jumped on him, but my ankle gave out under me.”

“You caught him?”

“Of course.”

John walks slowly around the room noticing the skull on the mantle, the books neatly stacked, the case files pulled out with one file open, pictures stacked neatly inside. A recently finished case then. He'd taken down the crime wall, but hadn't got all of the bits filed yet.

John catches sight of Sherlock's photo in a newspaper article. It mentions his daring capture of a kidnapper, but has so many personal errors that John wishes he still wrote his blog so that he could correct them. He pulls the newspaper toward him relieved to find that he doesn't have to concentrate in order to manifest physically anymore.

Sherlock is sitting in his chair with one leg stretched out. The blue plaster cast wrapped around his foot rises to mid calf, with only his big toe peeking out of the tip. Sherlock's eyes follow John wherever he goes.

“Was it a compound fracture then?” John asks. “Looks like more than just an ankle injury.”

“The fibula broke, but it didn't pierce the skin.”

John adjusts the pencils on the desk, and wonders what he should be doing. He's supposed to be damning Sherlock, right? Or perhaps not? He needs to resolve something. To work through... he isn't sure what. After Moriarty's last statement, he's hesitant, and unsure. John walks through the room touching the books on the bookshelf and glancing at the sky outside the window rather than looking at Sherlock.

The Black Dragon Blood is long gone. It had given him confidence last time, burning through his veins. Without it, his anger is buried deep, even so, he can feel it simmering like a coal covered in a bed of ash waiting to catch fire again.

“So,” John says, looking back at the newspaper again. “Has it really been over a year?”

“Almost two.”

“I see.”

“But time passes differently in Hell, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Was it much shorter?”

“Hard to say. It's hard to tell the hours apart when things are always the same.”

“It would be interesting to make a calculation of the differences. That is, people have speculated about the afterlife for quite a long time, and this is a unique opportunity to write something definitive on the subject. If you could simply describe what it is like there. I mean, I've read books. There are tales of a tunnel, some sort of light, but no one ever sees what's on the other side of the ...”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Is it that you are forbidden from speaking of it? You might let me guess. Then you only need nod. Is it anything like Dante's inferno? Or is it possibly that you...”

“I said that I don't want to talk about it!”

Sherlock stops talking. That more than anything drives John to turn and face him. Sherlock seems much healthier than before. He's underweight, as always, but despite his leg, he seems in good vigor. His blue eyes sparkle in the light from the window.

“You came back to me,” Sherlock says, eyes soft with feeling.

“Did you doubt I would?”

“No.”

“Liar. If you didn't doubt it, you wouldn't have mentioned in the first place.”

 

John walks over to his chair. It has been recently dusted and the union jack pillow neatly placed in the center. He thinks of sitting in it, but that would be too normal, so he walks around the chair instead placing his hands on the back to steady himself as he looks down at Sherlock.

Sherlock stares at him in wonder. John looks at his amazed face and then down at his own hands. He is uncertain what to do next. This isn't a completely uncommon state of affairs. Sherlock often unsettles him. When he had been alive, he had felt so confused at times, knowing that he wanted to say something, but not quite knowing what it was. But this is embarrassing. Demons aren't supposed to feel awkward, not in any story of the afterlife that he's heard of. He rocks back and forth on his heels glancing up at Sherlock who is staring at him as if he believes that tearing his eyes away would make John disappear.

John starts to talk, then stops. Last visit he said some things that he was ashamed of. He wants to apologize to Sherlock for calling him names and for hurting him, but he's fairly certain that apologizing is also something that demons don't do. He had thought that death would change things, but he was pants at this sort of thing when he was alive, and it seems that he's going to be a pants demon as well?

“Care for a cuppa,” John says in a last ditch effort to exert some kind of control over the situation. “They don't seem to have any tea in Hell.” When Sherlock makes no sign to move, John turns and walks into the kitchen. He sighs when he is finally out of Sherlock's sight.

He fills the kettle and puts it on the hobb wondering how many demons make tea for the person that they are supposed to be damning. He supposes it depends on how many demons are British.

 

He remembers Sherlock writhing on the floor while he heaped abuse down on him, and he is ashamed. He shouldn't have acted that way, but it had been the dragon blood talking, not him.

That had always been Harry's excuse, hadn't it?

' _It wasn't me, it was the whiskey talking.'_

 _'_ _The whisk_ _e_ _y wouldn't have said anything if it_ _had_ _n't_ _been_ _in your head to begin with,_ _'_ was his standard reply.

 

John opens the cabinet to get the supplies for tea. He puts the teabags into the mugs, pleased that Sherlock has kept his favorite RMS one, and waits for the water to boil.

Unable to stand still, he walks around the kitchen looking at all of the changes. Fewer dishes in the dish rack. No one else had moved in, since he'd left, and Sherlock was apparently doing fewer chemistry experiments at home. No body parts in the crisper, which is odd, but perhaps Molly has finally convinced him not to filtch them from the morgue without permission. Flowers on the kitchen table. Mrs Hudson must have brought them up before she left.

John opens the cards reading the names of Sherlock's admirers. The largest is from someone that he doesn't know. The client of the last case most likely. There were others: A card from Mike Stanford and his wife saying “Get well soon”. Something from Molly. Scotland Yard had even sent an arrangement of pink carnations.

It was a gag gift. Greg had once joked that since he'd spent so much money on the arrangement for Sherlock's funeral, that from now on Sherlock should only expect to get carnations. Sherlock had said that gifts of flowers were beyond pointless when he was dead, and that he'd quite liked the large spray of white lilies having seen pictures upon his return.

Next is a single red rose wrapped in a display of exotic greenery and tastefully seated in a black vase. He lifts the card to see a black W on the front, and his blood boils. He turns and storms into the sitting room carrying the offending card with him.

“Irene Adler sends you cards now?”

“She sent one before, the time that your wife shot me.”

John blinks. “Yes but… do you see her now? Do you talk to her?”

“See her? No. Talk to her? Well, she did text me recently about a matter she wanted cleared up. She had a little problem, so I ...gave her a hand.”

“Is that something that you do often? Give each other a hand?”

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “John, what are you on about?”

“What I am on about is _you_ violating our contract.”

“Violating our what?”

“Our contract. Have you forgotten? You promised to come with me. You can't just give yourself to that... Adler woman.”

“John, I never said that I _gave_ myself to anyone.”

“Then what is this? How often have you been seeing her?”

“Never. She doesn't sell secrets anymore. She went back to school, got a degree in psychology. Now she lives in New York as one of the most expensive sex therapists in the U.S. and probably the world. She and her partner got married last month. She doesn't have time for me anymore.”

“But you want her to have time for you.”

“What are you...John, are you...jealous?”

“No! Yes! You can't just... save children from child molesters and run off with Irene Adler. You're supposed to come to Hell with me!”

“You're overreacting, John.”

“Overreacting! I know how you felt about her.”

“I think not.”

“You want to get out of our bargain don't you? You're trying to find a way to escape damnation, well it won't work! You accepted the bargain.”

“No, John. You don't understand. If you had seen what happed between us in Karachi.”

“I don't CARE what happened between the two of you! What I care about is that you want to leave me for some...”

“I never said I wanted to leave.

“She lied to you. Faked her death and broke your heart. You can't trust her to keep her word. How can you forgive a person who's done that?”

 

John's words rang through the flat like a bell. The silence following it was even louder. Sherlock stared at John, a look of pain on his face.

“I don't know. But... if we don't forgive...there's no way to go forward from there.”

 

John closes his eyes wavering on his feet as anger courses up through him awakening from the place where it has hidden to erupt into something that he doesn't recognize. He crumples the card in his hand and throws it in the fireplace. Then he stalks toward Sherlock, his eyes aflame.

He places his hands on the arms of Sherlock's chair pinning him. Anger is right below the surface. His potential for violence so great that when he touches Sherlock ever so lightly on the tip of his cheekbones it sparks between them like lightning. When he speaks, his voice is dark and low.

“I saw how you looked at her. You were so affected that you couldn't even talk. You'd never stumbled over your words before, but she flustered you. I saw the two of you, strutting around each other like peacocks. I know that you wanted her.”

“I told you that I didn't.”

“You told me that you didn't want me as well, but that didn't stop you from getting off on the floor last time I was here.”

John runs his finger across Sherlock's cheek making a thin red scar with the tip of his demon claw. He bares his teeth. He might bite through Sherlock's neck. He feels powerful, yet his touch is soft. He's holding himself back by strength of will alone. Sherlock watches as John's biceps flex. He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry.

John moves the tip of his finger in a circle around Sherlock's lip as he says, “In this very room, I heard her say that she would have you right there on that table until you begged for mercy, twice. And what did you say to her?”

Sherlock stares wide-eyed trapped in John's electric gaze like a mouse in the path of a cobra. His jaw opens twice before he is finally able to get out the words, “I said that I had never begged for mercy in my life.”

“Before the day is over, you will.”

 

John reaches out and pulls down Sherlock's pajama bottoms bending forward to put his wet mouth on Sherlock's crotch over his pants. Sherlock sucks in a breath as John grabs the rim and pulls them down only to stop when the cast gets in the way.

He looks at his hands and his fingernails transform into claws. Then he rips the pants and pajama bottoms to shreds in four of five sharp strokes tossing away the torn cloth as he takes Sherlock in his arms and carries him across the room.

He bashes his back against the wall pushing him up the patterned wallpaper until his thighs are resting on John's shoulders. Sherlock's shaft is standing at attention right before his face, but he pushes him higher opening his mouth to suck in Sherlock's balls.

“John!” Sherlock cries as his hands reach out to the side to brace himself against the wall.

“John!” he moans reaching up with his hands to catch the horn of the skull on the wall. A nail pulls free, so that it hangs askew. Sherlock clutches at it calling John's name, as John rolls Sherlock's balls in his mouth sucking at the skin. He relishes the rough feel of dark hair across his tongue, laughing as Sherlock bangs his head against the wall and cries a high pitched wail that turns into the kettle's whistle.

  
Then John blinks.

“John!”

The kettle is whistling. John turns his head to see the animal skull sitting straight on the wall. Sherlock is standing beside him yelling in his ear, and the card is undamaged in his left hand.

“John, what happened? You froze.”

The whistle wails.

“I'll make the tea,” Sherlock says hobbling into the kitchen.

 

 _'_ _What was that?_ _'_ John wonders. ' _What just happened._ _Did_ _we_ _...It felt like_ _we_ _...but I didn't did I?_ _'_ Sherlock enters the room carrying two mugs. His pants and pajamas are intact.

“Sherlock, What just happened to me?”

Sherlock tilts his head concerned. “You were talking and you just froze. You didn't move or speak for over a minute. I tried to wake you. Then the kettle whistled and you...came back.”

“What were we talking about?”

“Irene Adler. John, I wasn't planning on meeting her again, and I have no intention of breaking our bargain.”

John wobbles on his feet, staggered by the intensity of what must have been a dream. He stares at Sherlock's unmarred cheeks and blinks back a tear. He doesn't want to hurt him, of course not, but he had wanted it to be true all the same.

Sherlock stands before him holding two perfect mugs of tea, and John feels loss.

“John?”

 

“Hell is not like this place. There are no others there to watch and judge. There will only be you and me… and the spiders.”

“Spiders? I don't understand. Tell me, John. What is Hell like?”

John turns two haunted eyes toward him and says, “Lonely.”

The world fades away then and Sherlock is gone.

 


	6. Whiskey

John sits alone on an endless plane of grey dust. The surface of the ground is cracked like dry paint. Every so often chunks of it give way and fall down into deep pits, the sound of their falling the only sound besides the ever present whistle of wind.

He looks up and sees Moriarty picking his way across the plane, avoiding the gaping pits with dainty steps and short leaps until he stands right in front of John.

“Well, well. This place is even more horrible than the last one. You have the worst taste in terrain, Johnny my boy. This dust is murdering my suitcoat. Come now, tell Uncle Jim what happened.”

“Nothing happened. That is, I thought something had, I knew that it had, but then I looked up and I hadn't done it. I know it doesn't make any sense...”

“Is this really the first time that you've had a vision?”

“A vision?”

“Yes, they're common enough around here. Sometimes they are images of the past, sometimes dreams of the future. You can even inspire them in others if you wish. Let me show you.”

Moriarty reaches out and lays the back of his hand on John's head, then …

 

John is in his childhood home. He has his rugby kit in a bag on top of his books, and he hears his sister yelling in the kitchen.

“I'm sorry I'm not the perfect little princess you wanted! I can't change who I am to fit your expectations!”

“I'm your mother and you bloody well will fit my expectations while you live in my house!”

“Well thank God that won't be for much longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm going to live with Da!”

“You what?!”

“I've already called him and he said as soon as he and David get back from their...”

“Don't you mention that faggot's name in this house!”

“Maybe if you were a little more tolerant of people and their sexual orientation then father would never have had to leave!”

There is the sound of glass shattering

“Don't talk to your mother that way! You are a child! You know nothing about what it's like to be an adult. Nothing!”

John hears angry footsteps, then a door slams shut. John puts his book bag down beside the couch and pushes through the door into the kitchen.

John's mother is short and slightly overweight with petite facial features marred by over-red cheeks and bags under her eyes. Her once pale hair is dyed red with cheap henna. She's standing on her feet beside the kitchen table that holds an ashtray full of stubs and a whiskey bottle. There's a shattered glass on the floor.

John reaches inside the closet and takes out a broom and dust pan. He puts a hand on his mother's shoulder, urging her to sit while he sweeps up the shards of glass on the floor.

“Back from practice so soon?”

“It's eight thirty, Mum.”

“Oh, I should start some dinner for you.”

“Don't worry yourself. I ate with the boys already.”

“Oh Good.” His mother pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and shakes one out. She lights it and sucks in a long breath.

John tosses the glass shards into the trash and then returns with the broom to find the stragglers.

“Sprinkle a bit of water on the floor. It makes the dust stick together and...”

“I know, Mum. I remember.”

John goes to the sink to wet his hand in order to sprinkle water on the floor, when he sees his Mother walking across it. “Mum! I'm not finished! You're in your stocking feet. You'll cut yourself!”

His mother reaches into the cabinet and takes out another glass, then she walks back to the table and sits down. She inclines the bottle filling her glass three-quarters full before taking a sip.

John stares at her. His damp hand resting on the tea towel as he watches her take one sip, and another.

“She's leaving us, Harriet. Too good for the likes of us, I guess.” His mother smiles, one of those sad smiles that are meant to reassure, but never do. “At least I have you to depend on, Love. You won't leave me, will you John? Come here.”

She opens her arms and wraps them around him, careful to hold her cigarette hand out, so she doesn't burn him. John reaches his left hand around to pat her back as she rests her head against his shirt. A moment later, he feels it grow damp from her tears.

“Don't let this happen to you, Johnny. Find yourself a good gentle wife to settle down with. One that doesn't drink or smoke too much. Someone respectable. Then maybe your kids won't hate you and run off.”

“Mum, Harry doesn't hate you.”

“It's all right if she does. I don't blame her for it. And when you finally leave, I won't blame you either.”

John wraps both arms around his mother and holds her tight. “I'm not leaving, Mum. I won't abandon you, not ever.”

“My loyal John. Some girl is going to love that about you. My best, my brightest son.” She kisses his arm. Then everything fades and they are on the grey plane again.

 

John covers his face with his hands. How long had it been since he had even thought about his mother.

“I'm surprised. I wouldn't have expected that from your family,” Moriarty says with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” John spits at him angrily.

“That your Mum had such a discerning palate. That was Jameson she was drinking, wasn't it? Well... I guess that sort of thing skips a generation.”

John shuts his eyes tightly in an attempt to will Moriarty away, but when he opens his eyes, he is still there. Now, they are in a room: four walls, no doors or windows. Moriarty is sitting across from him at a tattered linoleum-topped table. There is a glass set before John identical to the one that his mother had used.

Moriarty places a black bottle on the table. It is elaborately decorated, formed from blown glass in fantastical shapes with spirals on the front and back and a pair of wings on top like those of a bat...or a dragon.

“You'll be going back soon. Seems you need another dose of the Black Dragon Blood.” Moriarty says pouring a dark liquid into the glass.

“I don't need it.”

“So, you liked how things turned out the last time?”

“When I drank it I acted like...”

“A demon? Mortal life is so fleeting. There's no time to _'play nice_ '. And I promised Sherlock a fall. He wriggled out of it last time, but I owe him. Do you want him with us, or will you let him get away yet again.”

John clenches his teeth, and then he reaches out for the glass. His hand shakes as he lifts it to his mouth. It burns as it touches his lips, but he is able to down it in one go.

As it tears apart his insides, he feels his doubts fall away.

 _'Sherlock is mine to do with as I will.'_ John wiggles in his seat, his hand falling to his crotch. _'And I have a good idea of what I want to do to him next.'_


	7. Sex

John was fifteen the first time he'd shagged a woman. His mates had yelled catcalls when she'd snogged him senseless after the match, so he'd taken her into one of the referee changing rooms just to get a little privacy. When she'd undone the ties to her halter top, dropping them to reveal her large, round breasts, it had been a shock. His chest felt tight, and his balls had rolled up so fast that it was almost at the point of pain.

She stuck a thumb under her skirt and pulled her pants down dropping them around her ankles before stepping out of them and reaching out to undo his belt. Then she pushed him down on the bench and climbed on his lap. He lasted hardly a minute inside her, and when his vision had finally cleared she was already at the door. She winked at him before walking out of the room, closing the door behind her and leaving him lying there spent and powerless.

His teammates had praised him once they'd found out about it, and his reputation as a ladykiller had begun, but in truth he hadn't liked it much. From the moment she had showed him her half-naked body, he had felt totally out of control. For years he actively avoided women, but once in Uni he decided to treat it as a learning opportunity and he trained on how to please a woman. He'd been lucky enough to find a couple of very imaginative girlfriends who were more than willing to let him practice on them. He learned how to hold back his own emotions and please his partner before letting himself go. This made him very popular.

In the army, his unassuming nature and his ability to get a repeat date with any woman who had dropped her knickers for him once was what spurred the men to name him Three-Continents Watson.

He couldn't help the desire he felt whenever a pretty woman walked by, but it was contained somewhat by his certainty that he could have them begging and calling his name if he wanted them to. Even so, he always felt a little tense when he was alone with a woman.

Men, for the most part, did nothing for him. John found them uninteresting, almost without exception. Until a man had strutted across the lab toward him with his cheekbones and his tailored suit and John had felt it like a punch in the gut. He'd even had the gall to wink at him on his way out, just like she had, reminding him of what it felt like to be powerless.

When Sherlock had taken John's very mild query into his sexual orientation and thrown it in his face, John knew that his momentary thought of perhaps giving the other side a go was never going to happen. He put it out of his mind.

And yet, Sherlock always had a way of throwing him off balance. He definitely was NOT a woman, but sometimes the ever-changing color of his eyes, or the pale freckles on his neck as he stood playing the violin, or the rounded curve of his ass would hit John in a way that made him feel like he was back in that referee's closet.

As the Black Dragon Blood courses through his veins, John remembers the vision of Sherlock screaming out his name. He liked it. The power. He never knew how much he wanted to hear Sherlock beg until that moment. Now it is all that he can think of. He closes his eyes reaching down to adjust himself in his pants.

All those insults, all those put downs! Finally, he could pay Sherlock back for every slight. He would toss him over the couch and take him, knowing that Sherlock couldn't help but want him, already wanted him in fact. He had proven that the first day he'd gone back up to Earth. How easy it would be of dominate him? Why hadn't he thought of it before? Sherlock had already agreed to everything. He promised to follow John's commands. No, what had he said exactly?

_“I will do WHATEVER you command.”_

John hadn't noticed when he had put his hand in his pants, but he was massaging his balls thinking of all of the things that he could command Sherlock to do to him.

“ _First, I'll order him to get on his knees and suck me off.”_

John pulls on his cock, the clothes falling open with a thought. He stands, closing his eyes tightly as he tries to imagine Sherlock's curly black head going back and forth, back and forth, until he slams him back against the wall and ruts into him, forcing his cock down his throat.

John's cock grows painfully hard, so he raises his hands over his head to give himself a moment of peace, but then he feels a hand wrap around it while another massages his balls.

John is amazed at how realistic the vision is. He's afraid to open his eyes and disturb it. Some part of him wants to believe that he is already at Baker Street and this is really happening.

He can feel strong fingers stroking him, poking at his balls, drawing circles on his perineum. Then a damp touch makes him twitch as he goes down on him. In his mind's eye, John sees Sherlock's perfect lips wrapped around his shaft, and he can't hold back the moans. Control be damned!

He places a hand on his shoulder and rocks violently in and out of that perfect mouth.

“ _Oh God! His tongue!”_

John's balls squeeze tightly up against his body and he knows he's about to come. It starts as a shuddering in his legs, then the dam finally bursts when he feels sharp fingernails digging into his buttocks.

“Sherlock!” he screams as he comes hard, hips rocking without his conscious control. Chest rising and falling as he takes in breaths that he no longer needs to live. _“So real, so real!”_ But he knows this isn't Earth as he falls down into the chair and his hand hits the edge of the linoleum-topped table where he was drinking some unspecified time before.

 

He slowly opens his eyes expecting to see an empty room only to widen his mouth in surprise as he notices James Moriarty crouching on the floor before him, with a wicked grin on his face, and a stream of sperm coming out of the side of his mouth.

“Was it good for you?” he says in a mocking tone.

John jumps back overturning the chair as he backs against the far wall. Moriarty takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at his mouth.

“Oh John, you wound me. Is this how you treat all of your lovers?”

“What… I don't… I'm not gay.”

Moriarty's laugh is virtually incandescent. “Not Gay? Sherlock!” he yells, and then again louder and more dramatically, “SHERLOCK!”

John zips up his pants and turns away. Moriarty stands close behind him and leans forward to whisper in his ear conspiratorially. “Don't worry,” he says, “I understand completely. I could hardly bring myself to get it up for that witch Kitty Riley. The only way I could fuck her was by thinking of how what we were doing was fucking over Sherlock.” He puts his hand on John's shoulder as he lowers his voice “That really got my juices going, if you know what I mean.”

John slaps his hand away and walks across the room, turning to face him. Knees bent and arms out as if he's looking for a fight.

“Oh John, do you want to hurt me? I know who you really want to hurt. That's a really big packet you have there. A bit rough on the throat. Now I know why you always walk the way you do. Just think, soon your big cock will really be fucking him. When I think of you pounding in his virgin hole, I feel SO JEALOUS!”

“Shut it!”

“Oh how it will hurt! Delicious. He'll scream, but he'll let you do it anyway because he wants you so much. He'll want you to hurt him. Oh, be still my heart!”

“I said SHUT IT!”

“That's right Johnny,” Moriarty said nodding. “Violence is the answer. Give him a few extra pumps for me. Won't you?”

The lights dim, and John feels himself fading out slowly, but he can still hear Moriarty's hollow voice as he says,

“Don't disappoint me John. I'll be ever so cross. Just remember, he deserves everything you want to give him.”

Then, everything is gone.

 


	8. Want

“ _Moriarty, the fucker. How dare he ruin a perfectly good fantasy.”_

The transfer to Earth comes quickly, before John has a chance to pound that demon's head into pulp. He's angry, and he wants to break something, but.…

The smell of damp wood and motor oil.

This isn't Baker Street. The flat never gets this dark. Baker Street has streetlights outside of every window. He looks around, but Sherlock is not in sight. Why is he here then? Is this another one of Moriarty's tricks?

John clenches and unclenches his hand.

He'd fooled him. John had thought that he was having a vision of sex with Sherlock only to find Moriarty there instead. The man who had wrapped him in semtek. Wrapping his hands around... _that_.

“ _Was it good for you?”_

Said in the same syrupy voice, as when he'd talked to him through that earpiece, forcing him to echo every disgusting word so that Sherlock would think that he…

_The look on his face._

For a moment Sherlock thought that John was the one blowing up those people. As if he would do anything so indirect. When John killed people, he did it face to face. No hiding, no tricks. No wrapping explosives around children. Moriarty was a coward. What a pity he was already dead. John wanted to have been the person to put him down.

Two years. John had lost two years with Sherlock because of that man. Years that he could be doing….

 

He hears a sound on the other side of a door, so he opens it quietly and walks out into what appears to be a very old multi-bay garage. The place looks like it has been abandoned for years. He can see what appears to be parts of an antique two-door Alvis sitting in the corner surrounded by wooden crates that must be at least three decades old.

A chain creaks as it swings.

He pops the bones in his neck before turning to look at... a man standing in a pool of light: Blue Jacket, ridiculous orange trainers and a back pack.

Behind him, a heavy hook is suspended from the ceiling by a chain. It was probably once used to lift engines out of cars. The man in the orange shoes bends over and removes a panel from the floor revealing a hatch.There must have once been a pit underneath for working on the undercarriage. Someone has concealed it with a wooden floor

The man unzips his backpack and pulls out a black velvet bag. He opens it, revealing a diamond necklace that sparkles like the ice on the tip of a glacier.

 _He must be_ _hiding his stash. And if_ _he's_ _is a criminal then it means that Sherlock must be_ _nearby_ _._ _Where?_

John scans the room carefully and… there he is, behind a set of crates. Whatever magic brings John back to Earth must be tied to Sherlock, not to Baker Street. John smiles. Thinking of Moriarty had turned off his libido, but the sight of Sherlock wakens it again.

 _His head of_ _r_ _aven hair, so stunning against his pale skin. Sherlock on the couch. Sitting up. His robe falling off of his bare shoulders._ _John's t_ _anned hands rubbing across his chest_.

Sherlock is watching the man. He hasn't seen John yet. _He needs to get rid of that clown so that he can get Sherlock back to Baker Street._ John sees the outline of a pistol in the man's coat pocket. Time to see how corporeal he is today.

 

“Hey!” John says walking forward until he is standing right in front of the man. The man doesn't appear to see him, but Sherlock does. He lifts his head above the crate eyes widening. Luckily the thief is too busy stuffing jewelry in the hiding place to notice him.

“Are you deaf or something? Tosser!”

The man ignores him. Sherlock frowns at John who turns to face him.

“No need to give me that face, Sherlock? He can't see or hear me. Watch!”

John pokes the man in the side of the neck. The man slaps his neck as if to swat a mosquito. John does it on the other side, and the man repeats the action.

“See. Not a clue.”

 

John walks across the room and crouches beside Sherlock who turns his head and stares at him.

“So,” John says, “I expect we're on a case?”

Sherlock nods slowly.

“And Lestrade is somewhere nearby, yes?”

Sherlock shakes his head for no.

“Why not?”

Sherlock sucks in a breath, and then whispers very quietly, “Water's gang.”

“Oh!” John says not bothering to lower his voice, “The Water's gang.”

 

The Water's gang were a family of criminals who were distinguished from other criminal groups by their arrogance, ambition, and their exclusive contract with the best legal defense team in the UK. Lestrade had told him all about them one evening over a bottle of scotch.

“What are you waiting for? This must be enough evidence to arrest him. Call in Lestrade.”

He shook his head again.

“Why not?”

“Lestrade's got an ASBO,” Sherlock mouthed.

“An ASBO?” John laughed loudly, “Now that's bloody brilliant. Unbelievable. Simple solution then.”

Sherlock turns to him and raises an eyebrow.

“Kill him!”

Sherlock frowns.

“What are you afraid of? You have a clear shot, and I can see the outline of my Browning in your pocket. He's guilty. Get it over with so that we can get out of here.”

Sherlock considers it, then shakes his head. John crosses his arms, “Why not shoot him? You won't get any justice in the courts, and you know he's guilty.”

Sherlock furrows his brow and shakes his head.

John sighs heavily. “Damn it Sherlock, I can prove it, look!”

 

John strides over and presses the back of his hand against the man's forehead. The man freezes. “Come over and listen to this.”

Sherlock hesitates. Then he dashes out into the center, gun drawn, but the man is frozen in place, eyes unfocused. John reaches out his hand and Sherlock takes it. Then...

 

> He's in a car. The engine is idling. No one is looking. He bounces his knee up and down and looks around. Suddenly the passenger doors opens and Nigel climbs in.
> 
> “We've done it, let's go.” He drives out into traffic while the other man sticks a bag in the back seat. “It's Tuesday all right, so remember the alibi code.”
> 
> “I remember.” The man says checking his mirror as he turns.
> 
>  

“The Alibi code?” Sherlock asks John bringing him out of the dream. “What's the Alibi code?”

“Let's ask him.”

 

> A large sitting room with a green patterned couch. Expensive paintings framed in gold above striped wallpaper. Five men, including orange shoes, watch a white-haired man who is standing in front of a plan drawing of a store.
> 
> “If the police come for ya, go quietly and don't worry, we'll send someone to get you out. We have people standing by to come forward with your alibis. They'll swear they saw you somewhere else, but we have to all have the same story so remember the code 'cause they'll try to trick you.
> 
> "What's the code again?" Orange shoes asks.
> 
> “If the heist is on Sunday Morning, then you were at church. Sunday afternoon or evening, then you were at Brian's pub having a bite of sup. If it's on Tuesday, or Wednesday. You were at the back room of Glenn's playing cards. Monday, the church again, sorting clothes for charity. Friday or Saturday drinking at the club.”
> 
> “What about Thursday?”
> 
> “We don't work on Thursdays.”
> 
> “Dinner at Mum's,” one man whispers.
> 
> “Right, now I can guarantee three witnesses for anyone of those days and times, so don't forget. They'll try to confuse you, but if you keep your head, you'll be free before the week is out. Best investment I ever made sending my cousins to law school.”
> 
>  

“But this is Brilliant, John. We only need to have an officer stationed at the correct location on the day of the proposed heist, and we can destroy their alibi. Wonderful, John, wonderful!”

John removes his hand from the other man's forehead, but he is lothe to release Sherlock's hand. He rubs his thumb across the long fingers feeling the violin callouses.

“John!” Sherlock yells as the man turns and lunges toward Sherlock. Without thinking, John pulls back the heavy hook and bashes the man in the back of the skull. He falls head first into the hole in the floor.

 

Sherlock crouches down and touches the man's neck. “He's alive.”

“What does it matter?” John says. “I know where he's going to end up.”

“Won't it bother you, having all of these people down in Hell with you?”

“I've been there for years, and I've hardly seen anyone I know. Jefferson Hope hasn't come for tea even once.”

Sherlock smiles, “I thought you said that there was no tea in Hell.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

 

Sherlock laughs, and John joins him. Their eyes lock, then their smiles slowly fade. John licks his lips. Then Sherlock pulls out his phone and sends a text.

“Who's that for?”

“The local police. I've been sending them tips for the last week. Easy enough to deduce the criminals in this sleepy backwater. They hardly even try.”

“So, you think the police will come quickly?”

“Yes. More to try and catch me than for any other reason. If there is one thing I've learned after years of detective work is that what the police hate most of all is a smart arse.”

John laughs again. Injured man forgotten as he wonders how soon he can find an excuse to touch Sherlock again.

“Let's get out of here.” Sherlock says putting his phone away. He strides across the room and runs up a flight of stairs. John follows with a determined step. He enters an empty store room to find Sherlock crouched in a window, waiting for him. As John approaches he climbs out onto a branch, gracefully sliding down the trunk of the tree.

John knows that he'd look like a git trying to climb down like that. Then he remembers who he is. It isn't like he can die again. He jumps.

Sherlock stares, nostrils flaring.

 

The garage is at the end of a gravel driveway. Sherlock turns and strides toward the gate.

“So we are going to just walk down the road?”

“Faster that way, John, and safer. They might use dogs. A roadway with its frequent travelers makes our trail harder to trace.”

“And do you plan for us to walk all of the way to London?”

“No need. I have a cottage nearby. If we set a good pace, we'll be there long before the police arrive.”

Sherlock strides ahead, his long legs covering the distance quickly. John follows, his legs widening as he walks.

_The flair of his coat. Sherlock always was a drama queen._

Sherlock pushes open the gate with his gloved hand, then he stops and looks back at John before rushing down the road. John steps through and looks at the street stretching out before them. The damp pavement glistens in the lamplight. Sherlock pauses at a quiet street corner and glances around before crossing. Bouncing lightly on his toes as he jumps over a puddle. He rushes, despite the fact that there is no sign of pursuit, pausing in his walk every so often however to glance back at John.

 

At University, John read the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Sherlock reminds him of Orpheus. He is a musician, and John did indeed come from the underworld.

_What is that look in his eyes? Bedroom eyes. Sherlock on his bed in only his pants. A hand drifting down. Lidded eyes falling shut as he reaches inside. His mouth falling open._

John wonders if Eurydice had such dirty thoughts while watching her lover. A glance back, and Sherlock turns down another street.

_Sherlock is tall, but slender as a maid. John could easily wrap his hands around his waist. Or better yet pull the coat off of his shoulders so that his arms are pinned. Then he could hold him close with one arm while the other hand reaches down to undo his zipper and...._

John quickens his step.

 

They exit onto another road. This one has some traffic, although nothing approaching that of London. Sherlock crosses the road and enters a small residential park. He cuts across the lawn in his haste.

Pale clouds float by revealing a full moon. The slick soles of his shoes slide on the wet grass so that John is relieved when they are back on the pavement walking down a tree-shadowed road.

Sherlock darts between the street lamps like a dove, casting nervous glances back before starting to run. John chases him, fey with the thought of tackling him to the ground and taking him in the middle of the street, but before he can catch him, Sherlock vanishes through a hedge.

John enters the secluded, tree-lined walkway. He slows so that he can listen for Sherlock's steps. The sounds are muffled by the susurration of the rain-soaked leaves. Birds twitter in the trees above. The dampness of the air is incredibly erotic after the dryness of the dead lands. For a moment, John is nostalgic for all of the times that he has spent running around the streets of London following Sherlock. Then anger spurs him ahead to find where Sherlock has gone.

_He can't get away now, not when he is mine!_

The path is surrounded by trees on both sides. There is no one here to see them, unlike London where there are homeless standing on street corners, and overhanging windows filled with people. Here there are no CCTV cameras turning as they pass to shuttle information back to Mycroft. They are completely alone.

The path curves a bit and John spots Sherlock ahead of him. He turns his head giving John a glimpse of his profile, those high cheekbones shadowed dramatically by the moonlight, his dark curls wreathed with droplets of rain that sparkle like the jewels in the crown of a fairy king.

Lust rides low in John's abdomen. He wants to bite those luscious lips. He wants to grab that slender waist. Only a few thin sheets of fabric stand between him and Sherlock's soft, pale ass.

_When I catch him, I'll take him right here under the trees. The wind will muffle the sound of his cries as I thrust my fingers into his mouth. The droplets of rain will drown out the rattle of his belt as I flip it open and pull down his trousers and pants. The thump of his body against the trunk of the nearest tree will sound no different than that of a falling branch._

_Damp droplets will dance on Sherlock's neck as I press hard into him. Scissoring back and forth in long, deep strokes, drawing out moans as I pin his wrists against the trunk holding him in place as I take and take and take until he comes so loud the birds take flight._

John reaches down to adjust himself before following Sherlock to a small brown cottage. Sherlock pulls out a key and opens the door, glancing back once before going inside.

John follows closing the door behind him. When his eyes have adjusted to the light, he can see that they are in a small grey room with a bed and a fireplace. He lays a predatory eye on Sherlock as he drapes his coat and jacket over a nearby chair before bending down to start the fire.

_Good God! His arse. I'd roll my hands over them, kneading those cheeks with my palms and rubbing my thumb back and forth over his hole until he could hardly stand still, then I'd place my cock in the crack and skirt over the top pressing those round cheeks around me as I thrust back and forth. He'll cry. He'll beg for me to fill him, but I won't. I'll rub myself off on his bum and come across his back. Replacing those jewels of rain in his hair with my own come._

A blaze roars up filling the room with light. Sherlock goes to the bed and removes the blanket spreading it out before the fireplace. Then he turns toward John and glares at him saying, “Take off your clothes.”

 

“What?”

“I said, take off your clothes, John.”

 

John freezes. “Uh … Why?” He doesn't know why he is protesting. He only knows that Sherlock has derailed his thoughts yet again.

Sherlock pulls out his phone and turns it toward John.

“I've tried to take photos of you more than once now, but I haven't been able to get a clear picture. It won't record you. And yet, your supernatural visitation is extraordinary. You have a body, a corporal demon body. Very few accounts of such things have ever been recorded. I know. I have read every account that I could find. This presents me with an unprecedented opportunity to make an examination of your body and make a record of it for posterity. Not to be released during my lifetime, don't fear that. I wouldn't want people trying to catch a glimpse of you. That would be more than irritating, but this situation is too rare, and too brief. This must be documented! And you could vanish any second now. So we haven't a moment to waste.”

 

John finds himself sagging as his confusion overcomes his lust. He bites his lip.

“So...you want me to...strip?”

“Yes, now if you don't mind.”

 

He reaches for his belt, but then he remembers that his clothes aren't real, so he waves them away and they evaporate into mist. Sherlock's mouth falls open, and he swallows once before motioning at the floor.

“Lie down on the blanket. Face up.”

John resists for a moment before walking forward and placing his bare feet on the blanket. He gazes into Sherlock's eyes. Then he lowers himself down, lying back to stare at the white ceiling.

Sherlock crouches beside him. Then rises again, walking to the bed to toe off his shoes before returning to John's side. He gets on his hands and knees and sticks his head over John's crotch. John has to fight to keep himself from moving his hand to cover it.

_Damn Moriarty._

He clenches his hand, angry that he has spoiled even this for John.

Sherlock turns his head, noticing the clenched hand. Then he moves up until he is suspended over John's abdomen.

“You have a belly button,” Sherlock says.

“Yes?”

“Demons are not supposed to have them, not having been born of a woman.”

“I had a mother, Sherlock.”

“Of course.” He moves his head over John's chest, and reaches out a hand. He looks up asking, “May I?” and when John nods, he touches his chest.

John shuts his eyes.

Sherlock rubs his fingers across John's skin stretching them wide across his pectorals, before rubbing down and around to his side. He lightly traces John's scar.

John licks his lips and Sherlock zeros in on it, staring at John's mouth as he leans forward to place his elbows on either side of John's neck. John looks up to see Sherlock's face suspended over his.

“Black.” Sherlock says. “Your eyes are black.”

“They are?”

 

Sherlock's eyes lower to John's lips for a moment, then he swings his leg over John's body holding himself up by his toes as he slowly lowers himself down. He holds his body just above him, suspended on toes and elbows, close enough for the static to make John's hairs stand straight, reaching toward Sherlock's body as if he is a magnet.

“Sherlock ...” John says, and Sherlock finally tears his eyes away from John's lips as he pushes his fingers into John's hair. John closes his eyes again, and sighs, as Sherlock's long fingers massage the skin. John finds himself rising as his gut tightens in pleasure. His penis crosses the distance pressing against Sherlock's suspended body.

“Horns,” Sherlock says, his hands massaging over John's forehead. “I think I feel some.”

“Yes,” John says, feeling the horns grow as they peek out from his hair. Sherlock stares transfixed, his fingers rubbing around their knobby stubs as John reaches out to place his hands on Sherlock's sides. His hands slide against the silky shirt bunching it up into folds as his fingers tighten to grasp the fabric.

Sherlock's eyes snap to his, and his lips fall open as he sucks in a breath, then his eyes focus on John's lips again before he lowers himself down slowly, tilting his head slightly before touching his lips to John's.

After an eternity, they separate. Sherlock grins reaching out his tongue to lap lightly against John's upper lip. Then, John's lust bursts out like water breaking through a dam. He grabs Sherlock firmly pulling him down against his body and moans at the contact of his cock against Sherlock's clothed one. He rolls them over so that Sherlock is under him as his mouth opens to devour Sherlock's, claiming it in a kiss that deepens and deepens again as their tongues dance. Before he is even conscious of it, John is pulling out Sherlock's belt and flinging it across the room. The rest of the clothes come off rapidly as Sherlock helps, unbuttoning his shirt in record time just as John pulls his trousers and pants down. They sit up then, panting as they face each other, both of them full of want.

 

Sherlock naked is a bit overwhelming. He sits before John now, firelight dancing across pale skin, reddened lips that he bites as he watches John with eyes full of questions, the remnants of needle scars near his elbow, and a line of dark hair going straight down to surround an engorged cock that makes John's mouth water. He's still wearing his socks.

John swallows. He crawls forward heading for Sherlock's lips, but his knees are in the way. John lifts his hand to reach over Sherlock's knees, then he raises his chin toward Sherlock's face, but Sherlock retreats, leaning back until he is supine on the blanket.

John looks down at him. His cock rising as he crawls over the beautiful body below him. He halts when the tip of his penis bumps against Sherlock's. Sherlock's penis is red. The tip is wet with come. John pulls back and the tips rub past each other, a stream of semen suspended between the two of them.

John laughs nervously. “That's a bit gay, isn't it?” he says. Then he frowns as he notices the tip of his cock pass through Sherlock's. Shocked, he reaches out a hand to crawl forward, but he loses his balance when it passes right through Sherlock's arm. His body falls down through Sherlock's body and the floor beneath, before landing hard against a field of caked chalk sending up a cloud of dust, that slowly settles around him in a shower of white.

“NO!” he cries rolling on his back and looking up at the black, starless sky.

“NO!!!” he screams beating the ground with his fists as tears fill his eyes.

Then he rolls on his side pulling in on himself. “God no,” he moans clenching his hair in his hands. One naked body wrapped up in a ball on a plane of endless white chalk.

“I'm such a fool!” John says.

 


	9. Killer

John sits on a plane of chalk that stretches out an infinite distance in all directions. He is alone. The ground below him is white. The sky above him is black, and yet he has no trouble seeing. The problem is that the only thing that he can see is himself.

He hesitates, looking at his hands. Then he clenches them into fists before calling out the name that he had told himself that he would never again say.

“Moriarty!”

“You called?” a voice says, and John turns to find that he is back in the white-walled room. Moriarty is standing in the center, hands clasped. He's wearing a red blazer. “I take it that your return wasn't everything that you wanted it to be?”

“You know what happened, you bastard!”

“I assure you, sweet. I wasn't there. Why don't you tell daddy what went wrong.”

“I fell through him. He was naked below me but I just… fell through him. Why did you do that?”

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. I didn't do anything. When are you going to realize that I am on your side. I want Sherlock damned as much as you do. It's you that's the enemy here. Something inside you, did this”

“What?”

“If you give me a little more detail, I might be able to help you. So tell me, John. What did Sherlock's cock look like.”

“Fuck you!”

“Oh, if I thought it would help, I would, but last time, I didn't even get a thank you.”

“Have I told you how much I loathe you?”

“Oh Johnny, the sweet things you say. Now why did you call me? You must have had a reason.”

“I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of the frustration. I'm tired of being alone and returning to this FUCKING place. I want Sherlock here, now. Tell me how to do it.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Do you think that there is any other reason that I would call you after the last time?”

Moriarty frowned. “Johnny, you're asking for my help. Would it hurt to be just a little civil.”

“I haven't broken your neck yet. I think I'm doing pretty well. So tell me, do you know a way to make this happen, or is calling you just a waste of my time?”

“Oh I know. Believe me Johnny, I know how to get him here.”

“How?”

“It's simple, love. Sherlock has to die.”

“Time is passing faster above, but...not that fast. It will still be a long time before he dies a natural death.”

“Then, Johnny my dear, you need to help it along. You need to kill him.”

“Kill Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes. If you want him. He's already promised you his soul. You only need to kill his body in order to claim it.”

“But...kill him? I don't know. Perhaps I should wait...”

“You said you didn't want to wait. Besides, the more time that you give him, the more chance he'll have to find a loophole to get out of his bargain. You can't. Trust. Mortals! Clever things, they're always plotting. Give them a couple years and they will find a way trick themselves out of a bargain. Sherlock is yours to take, to own, to use as you will. Why wait when you can have him now?”

“But how?”

“Nothing simpler.” Moriarty pushes John down into the chair and places his hands on his shoulders.

You're a soldier, aren't you? A killer. I know you've murdered men in cold blood. Jefferson Hope for one. He was a broken tool, but he was mine. You shot him through two windows over an amazing distance, and no one seems to appreciate the skill of it. But I do.” Moriarty leans to whisper in his ear. “You are a born killer. If Sherlock hadn't got there first I would have taken you myself. Then again, I already had my own assassin.”

John turns his head toward Moriarty, teeth clenched. “And who was that?”

“Focus, Johnny, Focus. It's Sherlock we're talking about. If you were to kill him, how would you do it?”

“Not something I've often thought about.”

“And yet, that isn't true of Sherlock. He's thought of killing you so many times. He and I are not so different.”

“Sherlock is NOT like you!” John sneers.

“And be grateful. I would not go down as easily as he will. Hell! You could probably tell him, and he'd let you do it. Come now John, tell me. How will you kill Sherlock Holmes?”

“Well, There's the gun.”

“Stick with what you know. I like that about you. A bullet in the heart or brain would do it. Poetry, however, would demand the heart, but if you do shoot him, aim better than that wife of yours did. It was the biggest disappointment of my afterlife to almost have him, and for him to slip away, again.”

“He keeps a dagger on the mantle, to hold his mail.”

“Wonderful, a slit across the throat. A bit messy, but satisfying.” Moriarty walks around in front of John's chair and falls to his knees taking John's hands in his own. “But it might be best to simply strangle him. These hands. So strong. I've felt your technique myself. So skilled, just a simple _'crack!_ ' His neck beneath your knuckles. When I think that before long, these very hands will end Sherlock's life! I can't help but get a little bit excited!”

Moriarty grasps John's hands tightly and closes his eyes as he places John's trigger finger in his mouth. John rises to his feet and kicks Moriarty across the floor. He rolls twice hitting the wall and falling on his back. His hand reaches for his crotch and he arches up crying out as a pool of moisture dampens his four hundred pound designer shirt.

“I'm not doing this for your enjoyment," John says. "When Sherlock comes, you don't touch him. He's mine. You don't come near him!”

Moriarty turns his face toward him and laughs.

“Stay away from Sherlock!” John says pointing as he slowly fades away, the sound of demonic laughter echoing in his ears.


	10. Love

When John Watson arrives at Baker Street to kill Sherlock Holmes it is midmorning. He appears in the sitting room and judges the time by the two long squares of light that spear their way across the newly cleaned carpet.

The room is empty, and the silence is only broken by the light ticking of the clock hanging on the wall. John walks over to it. It is a new thing in a place that rarely changes. A small pendulum clock decorated with a royal coat of arms. Perhaps Sherlock has finally taken a knighthood.

The room is unusually neat with no books out of place, no stains on the carpet. It feels off somehow, but John doesn't quite know why. His chair is in place across from Sherlock's as always. The couch and tables are where they belong, but the tick, tick, ticking of the clock reminds him that his time on Earth is limited. He needs to kill Sherlock quickly, and he hasn't even decided how yet.

He opens a drawer in the small table beside the couch looking for his bullets and his gun. They aren't there. Neither are they in the desk or in any other of the places where he has stashed it in the past. It may be in Sherlock's room, or upstairs. John looks up wondering what has become of his room since his death. He considers going there, but he walks to the mirror instead.

His eyes are black as always, and his horns stick up slightly above his hair. He blinks, and his eyes glow from within with a red fire. He smiles.  _"Soon Sherlock will be mine forever."_

He runs his finger across the black cloth draped over the mantle of the fireplace looking inside the single dried flower arrangement that has replaced the knickknacks that Sherlock normally displays here.

John turns at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. He considers the cord of the floorlamp which would make a decent garrote, but discards the thought. There isn't enough time to pull it out of the base before whoever it is reaches the landing.

 

John stands, hands at his side, waiting to see who is approaching and is shocked to see Sherlock Holmes.

He's the same in every way that matters, but he is older. Grey hairs are at his temples, and his tasteful suit hangs a little looser on his tall frame. His blue-grey eyes are hidden behind black framed glasses, and his expression is sadder and somewhat softer than before. John was always a bit older than Sherlock. Now the difference is reversed. it feels strange.

“John,” he says.

“Sherlock?”

“Surely I've not changed that much.” He walks into the room stopping about five feet from John. “I'm glad that you've come. Can I get you some tea?”

“I'd prefer something stronger.”

Sherlock nods walking past John to the bookcase where he pushes aside a volume of his notes to pull out a dusty round bottle.

“I have just the thing to celebrate your arrival. A bottle of hundred-year-old scotch from Mycroft's private reserve.”

“From Mycroft, really? How'd you get that?”

“A favor.”

“That must be quite a story.”

“Perhaps another time,” Sherlock says pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe off the dust from the bottle.

 

“Dust,” John says. “That's what's missing. You used to say that dust was elegant, but I don't see it here. The room has been dusted and vacuumed.”

“Yes, horrid isn't it. Mycroft's people. It's impossible to find a maid who understands the importance of dust.”

“Where's Mrs Hudson?”

“She died of liver cancer almost three weeks ago.”

John looks back at the black cloth over the fireplace. He remembers Sherlock coming up the stairs but not entering through the front door. He must have been in her flat.

“The wake?”

“Yes, we had her wake here as she requested. Finally got to meet Mrs Turner's married ones next door. They gave me their condolences. They were sad never to have met you. I suppose that if we are going to drink this, I should find some glasses.”

“Allow me,” John says fleeing the room for the kitchen.

 

When he had planned to kill Sherlock down in Hell, he had imagined a younger Sherlock, naked, flushed, and still wearing his socks. He hadn't thought of the time passing above. He hadn't thought of people getting old and dying. Of Sherlock getting old and dying possibly before he could come to take his soul. Surely Mrs Hudson wasn't in Hell. That would be intolerable.

He shook the thought away. _"I can't let anymore time pass for Sherlock. Today will be Sherlock's last day on Earth. A fitting time to drink hundred-year-old Scotch."_

John reaches into the cabinet and pulls out two mugs. Wincing as he looks at the RMS mug. Nothing that he does today will be worthy of a marine. He replaces it in the cabinet taking the blue-striped mug instead.

He digs through the drawer then and finds the carving knife that a Japanese sword maker had gifted them. It has its own wooden sheath. He pulls it out and looks at the sharp edge before replacing it, stuffing the sheathed knife down the back of his trousers before heading to the door.

Sherlock is waiting for him, taking the mug from his hand and filling it before filling his own. Then he places the bottle down on the desk before walking over to sit in his chair. John considers sitting, but stands behind his chair instead, unable to sit without revealing the knife.

John takes a sip. “Mmm, this is good. Excellent in fact.”

“Yes, well, Scotch is one thing that you can depend on Mycroft to get right.”

“It is very good, but maybe after Dragon blood everything tastes good.”

“Dragon blood?”

“Nevermind.”

 

John looks at Sherlock's eyes, then at his lips, then his neck. He remembers the feel of Sherlock's skin against his own. He only need walk over to the chair and pull out the knife. There's the internal and external carotid as well as the internal and external jugular vein. He could cradle him in his arms as he bled to death.

No one would mistake it for suicide. There would be a murder investigation. He wonders if the front door is locked from the inside. A locked room mystery was always Sherlock's favorite.

He looks up to see Sherlock's curious gaze on his face. He sits in his chair with his legs crossed, distant, aloof, and heartless as he ever was. Anger boils up in John's stomach for all the times that he sat coldly by while John was breaking apart. He'd come here to kill his best friend. But if he told him why he'd come, Sherlock would most likely chide him for his hesitancy and lack of imagination.

 

John took another sip of the scotch before saying, “Now that we have a quiet moment together, I have a few things I'd like to say to you.”

“Yes, John. I'm listening.”

“You weren't always honest with me, Sherlock.”

“About what?”

“About you. In fact, it seems to me that we could have saved ourselves a lot of grief if you had simply been a little more honest about your feelings from the beginning.”

“Me? _I_ should have been more honest?”

“Yes. You've had feelings for me as someone who was more than just a flatmate for... I think a very long time now, and yet you never said anything to me about it.

I've had a lot of time to think, and it seems that you and I are compatible as sexual partners as well as business partners, and if you had just confessed your feelings before Mary and all of the rest of this had come along, then we could have avoided so much of the problems that we went through.”

“Oh really? Is that all?”

“No. You've always projected this ...image of yourself. This way that you want the world to see you, and because caring about me didn't fit in your plans, you repressed those feelings, pretending like you didn't feel any desire for me. But I could tell how you felt. I saw the way that you looked at me. How you were jealous of me. But whenever I tried to mention those sorts of feelings, you would shut me down. Despite the fact that I killed for you, that I've died for you even, I was never quite good enough for you to admit to wanting. I know it's too late to change the past, but I can't help thinking that if things were different, if you hadn't loved your image of yourself more than you loved me, then we wouldn't have had to settle for this fractured half-life that we're living now.”

Sherlock took a sip of his scotch and smiled crookedly before lifting his hand to touch his head. “I had to check to see if their was a name on my forehead, because everything you just said… that's exactly how I would have described you, John.”

“Me?”

“Yes you. Looking at me. Noticing my cheekbones. Being Jealous of Irene Adler. And I shouldn't have to mention the times I've died for you, and killed for you.”

“No, no, you're trying to make this my fault again. You and Mary always turn things around so that I am to blame. But I didn't...”

“Come on, John. You've had romantic feeling for me from the very beginning. Feelings that you would never admit to in person. Do you deny that?”

“Deny what? That I liked you. That I maybe even fancied you a little. How was I supposed to mention that, when I knew how you felt about ' _sentiment'_. How could I be expected to tell you about my feelings when I knew what you'd done to Irene Adler.”

“What have I done to her?”

“You told me that she loved you, and yet you gave her and her secrets to Mycroft without a thought. And then there was Janine. You made her believe that you loved her, but it was just an act.”

“Janine didn't love me! I was just another person for her to use.”

“You proposed to her, Sherlock. Proposed marriage! Where I come from that's a pretty serious thing.”

“Well while we're on the subject of proposals, if you were so certain that you wanted to be with me, then why did you propose to Mary?”

“I thought that you were dead!”

“I came back. I came back _before_ you proposed to Mary. It may have been only by moments, but it was before. But you proposed to her anyway.”

“I didn't know how you felt.”

“I had spent three years destroying Moriarty's network for you, John!”

“You spent three years destroying Moriarty's network to beat Moriarty. You never said anything about it being for me.”

“It was obvious!”

“Nothing about you is obvious, Sherlock. You tell everyone that you're a psychopath.”

“You lived with me, you should have known better.”

“I did know better. I knew that you could be kind, that you could be a friend, the best friend that a man could ever hope to have. I thought that was all that you wanted, so I didn't push.”

“You knew my feelings, John. I told you. I told you and everyone else my true feelings in a speech. Wasn't that obvious enough for you?”

“You mean the speech that you made at my _Wedding_ _R_ _eception_ , that speech?”

“Yes! That speech.”

“I was married then, what did you expect that I would do? Leave Mary at the reception and go home with you? It was too late then, too late!”

“No, that wasn't the reason. It was _you._ _Your_ image was more important than your feelings or my feelings, or even Mary's. You wanted to appear normal and respectable, with the wife, and the kids, and the normal job as a doctor.”

“I loved Mary, but you wouldn't understand that because you don't understand emotions like actual, human love.”

“How dare you say that I don't know about love! You are the one who confuses it with sex.”

“You lied to me. You stood on that roof and lied to me. You cried fake tears and let me think that you were dead.”

“Those tears were never fake.”

“How am I to believe you when you did the same thing again in the train car when you came back? You cried to manipulate me.”

“I said that I was sorry, but you wouldn't forgive me.”

“So you lied. Again?”

“John, you have consistently been willing to give up the life that made you happy, in order to be respectable.”

“I honestly thought that Mary could make me happy.”

“How could you when you've only ever formed serious romantic attachments with men?”

“This again? How many times do I have to say it. I am NOT gay!”

“I never said you were. You may be attracted to women, but it's men that you feel close to. Your love letters to women were trite and derivative, with no feeling to them. Your love letters to me, however.”

“Love letters? When did I ever write you love letters?”

“You used to write them all the time on the internet.”

“The blog, you're talking about my blog? Those aren't love letters?”

“Weren't they?”

 

“You're doing it again. Confusing me. Distracting me from the reason I came.”

“This reason of yours,” Sherlock said, “Did it have something to do with the knife that you have concealed in your trousers?”

John pulls the knife out, and unsheathes it. He walks up to Sherlock and stares up at him, pointing the knife at his throat.

“Do you really want to kill me John? Is that what you came here to do?” Sherlock steps forward until the tip of the blade is touching his Adam's apple. “Then do it. I gave my life up for you before, and you never got the message. Maybe this way you'll finally understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That I love you, John Watson, more than anyone, more than life itself. Cut me, kill me, tear me apart, but never doubt that I understand what it means to love someone beyond reason.”  Sherlock steps forward so that the knife breaks the skin sending a thin drop of blood flowing down his neck. He looks into John's eyes. “I know what love is, John. The question is, do you?”

John jumps back and drops the knife, fading away like a blown out candle almost before it hits the floor.


	11. Like a girl

The smell of oranges.

A tent door flapping in the breeze. Strong fingers digging in. The bright peel falling in pieces onto the surface a camp table. Oil arcs through the air filling the entire cabin with the smell of citrus.

“We've more ground to cover, and we're two men down,” Major Sholto says before taking a piece of orange and putting it in his mouth.

John looks up from where he sits slumped in his camp chair. He stares into blue eyes as bright as the desert sky. “Elroy and Firman were both good men. I tried to save them. I did everything I could for them.”

“I'm sure that you did, Watson. You're the best surgeon we have. If you couldn't save them, then they couldn't be saved.”

John smiles weakly, “It's nice of you to say, but I still think I could have done more.”

“As you should. Striving for perfection, that's what makes a man, isn't it? You did the best that you could, under the circumstances. No one can ask more than that. But I'm not looking forward to writing those letters to the family. It's never easy, but it's especially hard when those who die are so young.”

“Sometimes I wonder why they even enlisted. They could have been in Uni, having fun and meeting girls instead of coming out here to die in the desert.”

“Some people aren't made for civilized places. I couldn't imagine going back for good. Could you, Watson?”

“No,” John says. “It's a strange thing to say, considering where we are, but I've never lived in a place where I've felt more at peace than I do here and now... with you.”

Sholto pauses a minute to smile at John before eating the last orange slice.

John stares at the man sitting across from him. So strong and straight, and beautiful. It's as if this place had been made simply to show off his features. The square lines of his face echoed in the walls and floor. The beige color of the tent setting off the gold of his hair. He shines here, like the sun over the tops of the mountains.

In this moment, John's heart feels full, and this man makes him feel more welcome than anyone that he has ever known. He wants to tell him somehow, but he doesn't have words to describe it, so he rises to his feet and walks over to place a hand on the Major's shoulder.

He can hear birds singing outside the tent. Soon the sun will rise and everyone else in the camp will wake, but this moment seems made just for the two of them. A stolen moment of peace in a time of war. Unwilling to break the silence, but unable to keep his feelings inside, he bends down slowly and touches their lips together.

The taste of oranges blossoms across his tongue, bright and sharp as James opens for him, fingers threading through John's hair clenching them like John's heart is clenching as he realizes that his feelings are returned. John hardly knows what to call this feeling this... alignment, this accord with another person. Belonging certainly, perhaps even...love.

His head pulls back and their eyes meet in a long glance. John's lips open wide in wonder. Sholto's in a gentle smile. Then reveille sounds with a trumpet's call and he steps back. Sholto grabs his fingers in his hand keeping him from leaving.

“I have to go,” John says.

“A moment,” he replies stroking John's palm with his thumb.

“I'm on shift again. We're understaffed. ”

“Not for long. New batch of crows is coming in today.”

“Really? Are any of them surgeons? I wouldn't want to be replaced.”

“Impossible John. You know that you're irreplaceable.”

 

John finds himself in a dark room. Light leaks around the closed curtains illuminating a door on which hangs a dressing gown. Suddenly recognizing where he is, John turns and sees Sherlock asleep in bed, his feet hanging over the edge, his legs twisted in his bedsheets.

 _'Only_ _Sherlock c_ _an make such an un_ _comfortable_ _scene_ _seem endearing._ _'_ John thinks as he walks over to the bed to unwrap the sheet from Sherlock's legs.

“Come on, roll over and I'll get you out of that,” he says.

John rolls Sherlock on to his back and pulls the sheet from under him. Sherlock's eyes blink open.

“John?” he says. “Is this a dream?”

“What a stupid question, Sherlock. I'd say _'no'_ even if it was a dream.”

Sherlock sits up reaching out to grab John's arm. He reaches out his other hand, and feels the horns on the top of his head. “You _are_ here.”

“Yes.”

“I thought...I was afraid after last time, that you wouldn't return.”

“I told you I would… always.”

Sherlock rises to his knees on the edge of the bed. His fingernails dig into John's arms as his eyes rove all over his body. “I'm afraid that any minute you'll slip away again. How long do you have?”

“I don't know.”

“Then let's not waste any of it.”

 

Sherlock leans forward and presses his lips to John's, their heads almost even as he stands on his knees. John's arms reach around Sherlock's waist pulling him close and wrinkling his t-shirt as his other hand reaches down and grabs Sherlock's arse through his pajama bottoms.

“These clothes have got to go.”

“And these,” Sherlock says shimmying off the bed as he pulls at John's collar.

“Wait.” John says stepping away as he concentrates. He waves his hand, and his clothes vanish.

Sherlock stands beside the window. He parts the curtains slightly looking out before giving John a playful smirk.

“If you wait there, I can get rid of these clothes for you.”

Sherlock steps into the shaft of light shining through the slit in the curtains. It shines on him like a spotlight in the darkened room as he pulls the shirt slowly over his head. His pale soft skin is hairless except for a line of dark hair below his belly button that points straight toward his pants. John's eyes follow it down. He starts forward but Sherlock puts up a hand to stop him as he turns his back. He inches off his pajama bottoms and pants slowly revealing the bright smooth skin of his ass.

His legs are long, pale, and smooth. He steps out of his clothes, bending almost in half, and he turns his head to peek around his knees as John reaches down to squeeze his rapidly filling cock.

“Oh Sherlock, you are killing me,” he says.

Sherlock stands up, and looks over his shoulder again saying, “Impossible John, you're already dead.” Then he winks and John becomes instantly hard as a board. He rushes forward rubbing his cock against the soft curve of Sherlock's ass as hands grab Sherlock's chest. He attacks his long neck with his lips slipping down to run his tongue across his back as Sherlock bends over to take the pillows from the floor.

John grabs his hips rutting up against his ass as he rubs his hand down Sherlock's thighs. Sherlock lifts his knee climbing into bed and dislodging John. He turns toward John placing the pillows over his crotch like the feathered fans of an exotic dancer.

John pulls on his cock twice. “You're teasing me, aren't you Sherlock,” he says before rushing onto the bed and pinning Sherlock down between his thighs. He squeezes the pillows that are lodged over Sherlock's crotch. Mouth watering as he stares down at the feast before him. Sherlock has never looked more beautiful.

The light leaking in through the barely parted curtains shines across one pink nipple, and John licks his lips. Dust motes fly around Sherlock like angels worshiping his hallowed flesh. His eyes glow with the reflected gold of the daylight bouncing off of John's tanned chest.

“You've let your hair grow,” he says running his fingers in and out of the raven curls resting against his shoulders. “I like it. Though it makes you look like a girl.”

He threads his fingers in his hair and pulls Sherlock forward for a kiss. Sherlock's eyes fall shut as John feathers his bottom lip and chin with shallow kisses. He falls forward onto Sherlock as his fingers massage Sherlock's scalp.

“John. John!” Sherlock calls out until John silences him by kissing him hard on the lips. Sherlock shudders under him, reaching his arms around to hold John's back.

“Damn these pillows!” John says reaching for them, but Sherlock cries “No,” and rolls to the other side of the bed.

John sits back on his heels, puzzled. “Sherlock, what's wrong?” he asks. But Sherlock rummages inside the bedside table pulling out a tube of lubricant.

“Oh,” John says.

He had honestly forgotten that things like lubricant and condoms existed. He is relieved when Sherlock doesn't thrust a condom at him. He doesn't think that there are any communicable diseases that can be transmitted from the afterlife.

Sherlock bunches the pillows up under him propping up his ass as he reaches back and begins rubbing lubricant around his pink hole.

John stares, his hand on his cock forgotten as Sherlock spreads his legs and sticks a finger inside.

John moans, tightening his grip on his cock which is already standing to attention. Sherlock has positioned himself so that the light from the window shines directly on his dimpled hole. Warm sunlight spearing in as his finger pushes in and out, in and out.

John finds himself stroking in time with Sherlock as he puts another slicked finger inside. When Sherlock reaches his other hand down and pries the hole open even wider, John's hand flies across his shaft hammering like a piston. He calls out. “Sherlock! Let me in now or I'm going to come all over you.”

“Wait,” Sherlock whispers thrusting three fingers inside. John's buttocks clench and he squeezes his cock tight as Sherlock pulls them all out with a wet and sloppy sound. John moans.

“Now!” Sherlock yells and John's cock pushes forward sliding past the hole in his haste to ride across the crack of Sherlock's ass.

“Oh, Oh!” John cries as he pulls back and tries to position himself again until…

“God Yes! Yes!” he cries as he slides all of the way into Sherlock. His hands gripping Sherlock's thin waist. He savors it for a moment before pulling out and pushing in again.

John begins moving in a steady rhythm as the world focuses down to only his cock and Sherlock's body around him. He slowly comes back enough to hear the sounds of Sherlock's moans rising in pitch as he angles his body to thrust a little more shallowly. He knows that he must be striking Sherlock's prostate. He smiles when he hears Sherlock curse and come. Then he picks up the pace, hammering into Sherlock's body with abandon. He lets out a demon's howl as his come squirts out of him filling Sherlock up in a half dozen powerful spurts.

He collapses onto Sherlock then, his wide shoulders pinning him to the sheets as he slowly tries to remember how to move his limbs. S _o long. So long he's dreamed of this, he's wanted this. To finally have it is ..._ _more than satisfying. He wants to tell the world. He wants to write it across the sky._

He crawls aside slipping out of Sherlock and rolling on his back. He breathes in and out slowly before turning his head to look toward Sherlock who is facing away from him curled on the edge of the mattress.

He hears a sound, and he lifts himself up on one elbow leaning over Sherlock's shoulder to look at his face. Sherlock is crying.

 

“Sherlock, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I'm sorry John,” he says biting his lip in frustration and disappointment.

“Sorry, about what?”

“I tried to wait. I didn't mean to ruin it. I tried not to go until after.”

John pulls Sherlock's shoulder trying to roll him over, but he resists, so John crawls over him kneeling on the floor as he tries to look at Sherlock's face which is hidden behind his hand.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I've waited for so long.”

John grabs Sherlock's wrist prying it away from his face revealing the path of tears streaming sideways down his cheek. John reaches out and touches one that still lay balanced on his cheekbone.

 

Sherlock rolls away from him then exiting the other side of the bed and walking toward his dresser. He pulls out a pair of pants and pulls them on quickly, his face turned away. Then he walks over to the door and pulls on his dressing gown, wiping the tears from his eyes with the edge of his sleeve.

John stands facing his back. “Sherlock, you've got to tell me what's wrong. Did I hurt you?”

“No, John.” Sherlock says still facing away. “Just give me a moment to compose myself.”

Sherlock walks around the edge of the room closing the curtains and turning on his desk lamp. He sits down in his chair and rips a patch off of his arm before pulling out a hand mirror. It isn't a nicotine patch. It looks more like a hormone one. Sherlock rubs something on his lips with a finger. His long dark curls hide his eyes from view as they hang around his head like a halo.

John walks forward stopping as Sherlock turns toward him. Sherlock's brows are thin and dark, his full lips red, eyes shadowed and lined. His shoulder length hair rounds out the length of his face making it look softer.

“Sherlock,” John asks. “Are you wearing make-up?”

“It's rude to ask, John.”

John sits down on the edge of the bed and picks up the discarded patch. “Explain this then.”

“Explain what, John?”

“This is a hormone patch. You're taking female hormones. Why you're trying to look like a girl?”

“I thought you'd like me better this way. I thought, after the way you looked at me last time, that I should put some effort into my appearance.”

“But Sherlock, that wasn't what...”

“There is no need to lie, John. I know your preferences. You don't like men. You do like women. I'm not a woman, but I can look more like one if you want me to. I can act like one too. I'm sorry, I came in front of you. That was very unladylike.”

“But Sherlock, I don't want a woman. I want you!”

Sherlock's lips turn down in a frown. “I was there John. I could hardly fail to see how the sight of my cock was enough to make you lose all of your desire. To make you flee. And when you returned, you couldn't hide your disgust at my appearance.”

“I wasn't disgusted,” John said grabbing his arms. “I was ...surprised.”

Sherlock snorted. “You're a demon, John. You don't have to pretend to be nice. It was always a risk with you, John. I saw from the first that you were attracted to me, but I knew that there would come a time when it wasn't enough. I tried to keep your attention as much as I could. I bought the tightest shirts and trousers that I could fit into to make you look at me.”

“You did that...for me?”

“Obviously, John. Do you observe nothing?” Sherlock picks up the mirror and examines his face. “How will I look in Hell, John? Will I look the same as I do when I die, or will I be able to chose a younger form? You look the same as the day you died, except...”

“Except what?”

“Your scar. You don't have the scar from your gunshot wound.”

John looks down at his chest. “But it's right here.”

“Not that wound. The wound that killed you. The hole was right there.” Sherlock says leaning forward and touching a spot on John's shoulder with two fingers. “But that wound isn't there anymore. Why do you think that is?”

“I suppose...” John says glancing down at his chest as he slowly traces a finger around the edge of the wound, “...that Afghanistan is part of who I am, but that last wound. It was just a momentary thing. It left no lasting mark.”

The edge of Sherlock's lips turn up. “No lasting mark? It left no lasting mark, you say?” Sherlock turns his face away.

“Sherlock,” John says reaching out to turn Sherlock's face back to his. “Look at me. I just had the most amazing experience of my life and afterlife. I just slept with the man I idolize as I've wanted to do almost from the moment I met you, and you ...where are you, Sherlock? What are you thinking?”

Sherlock blinks. He looks at John intensely. Then his eyes begin to water and he bolts, pushing John away and running out of the door.


	12. Live

John chases after Sherlock, narrowly avoiding a door in his face as Sherlock runs out of his bedroom. Sherlock's long legs help him stride across the room rapidly, but John is a sprinter. He dogs Sherlock's heels reaching out and grabbing his robe, but Sherlock lets it slip from his arms as he rushes out into the hall and up the steps. John drops the robe and follows. Sherlock enters the room at the top of the stairs and tries to slam the door shut, but John bounces against it, pushing inside only to stop dead in shock when he sees his bedroom.

The room is the same as when he left it all of those years ago. His clothes are still hanging in the closet. His jumper laid out over the back of the chair. His boots still caked with dirt. He had been planning to clean them when he came back. How many years has it been? Ten? Twenty? He doesn't know, but everything is still as it was. No dust. Everything in its place.

The bed is the only thing that appears to have changed. There are new sheets, and they are rumpled. It has obviously been slept in recently, and the pillow is dented in. John walks past Sherlock, jealous for a moment that someone else has been sleeping here, until he notices a black curly hair on the pillow. He looks up.

Sherlock stares back unapologetically, his bottom lip jutting out. He looks noble even though he is only in his pants. John is speechless, awed by the devotion displayed here. His weekly flowers at Sherlock's grave pale in comparison to a man who would keep his room as a shrine for years, changing himself completely to please the demon sent to damn him.

John walks over to his dresser and pulls out a handkerchief. He wipes the lipstick off of Sherlock's face, revealing much paler pink flesh. Then he folds the cloth and works on the cheeks and eyes. The eyeliner resists removal, so he puts the cloth down on the dresser before rubbing his thumbs across Sherlock's high cheekbones.

“You are beautiful. I am struck by it whenever I see you. You don't have to change yourself for me to want you. I will always want you, even when you are one hundred and fifty.” John reaches his hand out to rub the back of Sherlock's neck. “I want you, and I want to make love to you as you are. I want to make love to a man.”

He pulls Sherlock into a hard kiss, and after a moment of resistance, Sherlock melts into him. John holds him against his chest before lifting him in his arms and laying him gently down on the bed. He pulls off his pants then he climbs into the gap between his knees. Sherlock's cock is mostly limp, but it grows as he gently strokes it with one finger before bending over and kissing it. He looks up at Sherlock's adoring face, and then he laps across the underside of Sherlock's cock, taking it in his hands and working it like clay before circling it with his lips and taking it into his mouth. Sherlock moans out John's name, and John hums in pleasure. The vibration making Sherlock harden with every deep stroke.

Sherlock's head rolls from side to side as he mutters a constant litany of “Oh, John. Oh, John, Please John...I'm going to come!” John pulls off and says, “Do it!” And Sherlock does, coming in long milky strips that coat the hairs of John's chest. John strokes Sherlock deeply pulling every last bit out of him until he falls back completely spent. “Good God, John. My heart,” he says. “I'm not a young man anymore.”

 

John crawls up beside him and cradles him in his arms. “Shhhh!” he says, “Time has no meaning to us. Even death can't keep me away from you.

John closes his eyes, and the two of them hold each other silently. Sherlock reaches out a hand then and traces the scar on John's chest. “I know its exact dimensions, you know, to the millimeter.”

 John smiles holding him closer, his mouth in Sherlock's hair. “Really, how did you figure that out, love? Did you sneak into my room when I was asleep?”

“No. I had ample time to examine you after you were dead.”

 

John pulls away looking down at Sherlock's face. “I'm sorry that I left you. I died. It was my anger that got me in the end. That bastard hurt you. Struck you down, and I wanted to kill him! Did kill him in the end, though it damned me to do it. I'm a murderer. That's why I'm in Hell.”

 “It can't be, John. You saved me. I fell unconscious soon after you left. If you hadn't killed him, he would have circled back and shot me where I lay. You were a hero, John. You saved me, and likely those children as well by taking out that madman.”

“You don't understand. You always acted like I was some kind of perfect man, but you yourself told me that there are no such things as heroes.”

“I was wrong,” Sherlock said, and John couldn't stop himself from kissing him.

They wrapped their arms tightly around each other. John held Sherlock's head to his chest as he stroked his hair.

 Sherlock spoke haltingly, words spilling out in bursts. “I was being prepped for an x-ray when I found out. Mycroft walked into the room. I knew the moment that I saw his face. I remember running. There was... yelling. The next thing I remember, I was in the morgue. Molly was there. I saw your body on the table and I...” Sherlock' closes his eyes, burrowing his face deeper into John's chest as he holds on tightly to his shoulders. “I threw myself on your body. I think I wailed. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I broke down completely. Molly must have kept the others out, because they didn't force me back to my room. I wouldn't have gone anyway. I couldn't have gone. I couldn't leave you.” John felt tears on his chest. Then nails bit into his shoulders.

“If he hadn't already been dead, I swear I would have killed him myself. That man who shot you. I would have torn him limb from limb and cast the bits into the sea. I told them that I would, and I threatened anyone who tried to take your body from me. I know I stayed there overnight, and possibly the next day. Mycroft must have pulled strings because I woke up on Molly's bunk. They had put your body in refrigerated storage, but they still didn't force me to leave. So I put on a lab coat and observed you. That's when I took the cast of your wounds. I was analytical, detached. I thought that I was better, but apparently, no one else did. They treated me as one gone insane. In truth, I suppose that I was. A large part of my life ended the day that you died.

“I did go home, eventually. There was a funeral. I barely remember it. I was so drugged on sedatives at the time that it seemed to happen in a blur. Everyone walked on eggshells around me. Every night was a danger night. It was less than a month after the funeral that I resolved to kill myself, but I knew that I wouldn't have a chance until I became a bit more... normal. It took a long time. Finally a time came when people stopped asking me if I was okay the moment that they saw me. They relaxed a bit. That's when I stole the morphine.

“When I saw your demon form, I was sure that I was insane, but I didn't care. You had returned to me, and you told me that you always would. That promise is what sustained me, what has continued to sustain me for all these years. Whenever I would doubt, I would look at the mark on the wall. I feared that I might have made the mark myself in my madness, but I couldn't give up hope that you had, beyond all logic, found a way to return from the dead. I waited, and I waited, and you came back, and I knew that I would always wait for you. For as long as I live. Every morning begins with the hope that I might see you again. Every evening ends with the wish, that when I die, we will be together forever.”

John rolls over laying Sherlock's head down on the pillow, as he cups his face in his hands. He sees a tear rolling down Sherlock's cheek only realizing that it has fallen from his own eyes when another joins it. John kisses Sherlock softly, gently as he says, “I'm sorry, for every tear I've caused you.” He kisses the side of Sherlock's neck placing his lips near his ear as he whispers. “I'm sorry for every minute that I didn't tell you how being with you was the one thing that gave my life meaning.”

Sherlock pushes up then capturing his lips in a kiss as he wraps his arms around John's neck. John lowers them both down and pins Sherlock under his broader body. “I don't think I'll ever let you go again.”

"Don't," Sherlock says pressing up against him.

 

Despite protestations of his age. John feels Sherlock's cock hardening as he rubs his own against it. “Nothing is denied us, love. I was wrong to fear what other people thought. It was always me who limited what we could become. You tried to change yourself for me, because I couldn't change.” John reaches down and rubs circles around his own anus willing it to widen. “But I have changed. Let me show you that I am yours as much as you are mine.” John lifts himself up and slowly lowers himself onto Sherlock's long red cock. Both of them moaning as it slides into place. John's body pulls tight around his as snug a warm jumper on a winter's day.

Sherlock thrusts up and up into John who wraps a hand around his own purple cock and pulls. He rolls forward and back riding Sherlock as he pulls his own foreskin up and over the tip again and again. Timing his strokes with Sherlock thrusts so that they moan in unison. Goosebumps run down his thighs as Sherlock's fingers knead his buttocks. His head falls back, and he feels as if his entire body is floating. His muscles alternately pulling and pushing. Sensations so different in feeling and emotion from anything that he has felt before that it is like suddenly hearing sound for the first time and finding that you are listening to Chopin.

When he comes, it is a shock almost like birth. The world turns white around him, and he hears a cry. Sherlock is coming at the same time. When John wakes, arms are draped around him, his softening cock sticky with come is pressed against Sherlock's thigh.

Sherlock eyes are slits. He rolls over to look at John, as a smile touches his lips. “I suppose you'll want me to cut my hair now,” he says.

John reaches out and rolls a curl around his finger “I don't know. I sort of like it long. What does Lestrade think?”

“He shaved his head in protest,” Sherlock says, and they laugh together until it hurts. Sherlock looks at him then, a serious expression on his face. “Don't vanish, please,” he says. “There is so much more that I want to tell you.”

“I'm not gone yet,” John says pulling Sherlock into his arms. “I'm right here.”

That seems enough for Sherlock because he closes his eyes and relaxes into John. When John thinks that he has finally fallen asleep, he says, “You didn't answer me, John. Will we still have bodies when we get to Hell? I hope that we do, because I don't want to give up loving you and making love to you. You said that we'd be alone there, except for the spiders. What are 'the spiders'? Do they watch us, or crawl upon our skin? Is it very hot there, or cold? I've heard that there can be crushing cold in Hell.”

 “Hush, hush, dear. We're on Earth, now, and you're still alive.”

 “But Hell is supposed to be painful. Will they let us stay together? Because the best way to hurt me would be to separate me from you.”

 “Shhh, you're tired. Let's sleep for a bit. We can talk later.”

 “But I don't want to sleep, you'll be gone when I wake.”

John kisses Sherlock. Then he pulls him close so that their cheeks meet. He rocks him in his arms, threading his hands through Sherlock's curls until they both fall asleep.

 

 ***

John takes the ruined hand into his own. “Your tests look good. You should be on your feet soon. Just a few weeks of R and R and you'll be back scaring crows at inspection again.”

Sholto's damaged face makes an odd half smile. “Unlikely. The court-marshal….”

“Damn it, James! No one could have predicted that ambush. You were lucky to get out with the lives you did. No one can blame you for their deaths.”

“They can, and they will. Every parent, wife, sister and brother of those men who died can blame me. I was their commanding officer. Their lives were my responsibility, and I let them down. I'll be dismissed with disgrace.”

“No you won't! It wasn't your fault! You were under orders.”

“I know John, but...”

John leans forward grasping his hand tightly. “You are...the most loyal, most honorable soldier. No, the most honorable man that I have ever known, and they would have to be complete idiots to let someone like you go! It can't happen!”

“It might...But thank you. You don't know what it has meant to have you here, during my recovery. I don't think that I would have pulled through, I know that I wouldn't have, if you hadn't been at my side, Watson.”

“John. Please, call me John.”

“All right...John.” Sholto closes his eyes once, and then opens them to see John leaning over him. He reaches out, and places his hand on John's shoulder.

“In all seriousness, John, this is likely the end for us.”

John shakes his head. “Don't be so morbid. You're going to be fine.”

“I didn't mean I was dying, I meant we … you and I will be parting most likely forever.”

“I'm not leaving you, James.”

“I'll be the one leaving. I'm done. I'll be put out to pasture...don't deny it, you know it's true. They'll be looking for someone to blame. I want you to stay out of it. I don't want my ...disgrace to bring you down as well. You have a bright and brilliant career ahead of you. The best surgeon in Afghanistan. Finish your tour. Go back with all the honors you deserve, and get that home you always wanted with the wife, the two children, and the dog.”

“James, I don't even know if I want that life anymore.”

“You are loyal, and… in wartime, people feel that they need to hang on to things. But sometimes you simply need to let go.”

John mutters behind clenched teeth, “I'm not going to abandon you, James. I won't send you into that courtroom to face those wolves alone!”

“Watson!... John. Let me go. I'm not coming back from this hearing.”

“But...”

“That's an order.”

John looks into those eyes, soft with unspoken emotion. Then he turns away, glancing at the nurses, standing across the ward, giving them their privacy. John's heart breaks when he thinks of what might have been. He clasps Sholto's ruined hand, lowering his head to kiss those burnt and damaged fingers. Another hand rests on top of his head like a benediction. John hears a sob. He keeps his head down lest he see his commander's tears, or perhaps he does it so that James can't see his own.

 

****

John wakes to find Sherlock splayed across the bed like a child. He is so good, so full of love and promise with a heart so pure. Hell is no place for him. Tears spring up in John's eyes as he understands Sholto at last. He climbs out of the bed and bends down to kiss Sherlock's cheek.

“Mmmm!” Sherlock hums on the edge of sleep. His lips turning up in a smile. His eyes still closed.

“I release you from your promise,” John says. “You are free. I've done the things that I've done, and I accept my punishment, but I won't take you down with me. You should go to Heaven. You are indeed the wisest, kindest, most beautiful person that I have ever met, and I will not let my selfishness take you away from whatever reward is in store for you.”

Sherlock turns his head and his eyes open slowly as he looks up at John.

“I love you,” John says. “I should have said it before, but I love you, always have, always will. Goodbye, Sherlock.” Then John closes his eyes and feels himself fade away.


	13. Friend

Mary stands before him. Her blond hair shining above the black of her bodysuit. “You knew it was never going to work, John. I married you under false pretenses. You were on the rebound, and I was... dazzled by the possibility of a life that I thought was forever out of my reach.”

“But Mary, I can forgive...”

“And that's your problem right there thinking that I have done anything for you to forgive. It's not _you_ who I need to apologize to. Come now, we both know that this breakup was long overdue. I have a new life ahead of me, and you have someone waiting for your return. So go on. Who am I to stand in the way of love?”

“But I...”

Mary holds up a hand stopping him. “Don't. Please, don't say it. Just say goodbye.”

They face each other. The two of them were always able to meet eye to eye as equals. Mary may have lied to him, but he lied to her as well. He salutes her.

“Goodbye Mary Watson,” he says.

“Goodbye, my husband,” she replies before climbing into the helicopter and flying away for good.

John opens his eyes to find that he is back in the white room which has become his new home.

 

Moriarty enters through the door, the smell of sulfur and flames at his heels. He closes it only then seeing the room around him. It has four white walls, each with a window. The window beside the door looks out onto a busy London street. The one on the next wall shows a glowing yellow desert. Across from the door is a verdant forest, the sound of birdsong drifting in on the breeze. On the fourth wall, the window shows an ocean with roaring waves. 

Moriarty twirls around in a complete circle, his eyebrow rising. “Nice,” he says, “I like what you've done with the place.” He snaps his fingers and a chair appears. He pulls it out, turning it sideways to echo the way that John is sitting, at right angles to the table as he faces the ocean window, his left hand placed face down on the table surface. Instead of facing the ocean as well, Moriarty swings a leg over the chair to face toward the desert. The sleeves of his dove grey jacket resting on the back of the chair as he smiles over at John.

“Soooo Johnny boy, I hear that you've finally _**had**_ Sherlock Holmes. I won't tell you how I know, but I heard that it was absolutely filthy, and that Sherlock was wearing lipstick. Is that true? Was he wearing lacy underthings as well. Do tell. My fantasies won't be complete unless you do.”

John stays silent. The only sign that he heard Moriarty is the slight movement of his fingers on the table before he spreads them out to rest again.

“So you've decided to ignore me. No matter. At least now you will have finally accepted that you are gay.”

“I'm not gay,” John says.

“What?”

“My entire life and most of my afterlife I've been trying to fit into boxes that other people have made. I won't do that anymore. I'm not gay... or straight. I'm not a soldier, or a man, or even a devil. I don't identify as any label you can make up. I am simply myself, John. I will love who I want, and do what I want. I don't need your approval or anyone else's. I don't need others to tell me what my limits are. I'll find them myself. I was so enslaved by my own identity that I hurt Sherlock. I made him feel like he wasn't right, like he had to change himself for me to love him. I never realized how my discomfort in my own skin caused him pain. I acted badly, and I'm sorry. I hope that he realizes that in the end.”

“He will once he's here with us. Human lives are only so long.”

“He's not coming. I set his soul free.”

“What did you say!” Moriarty screams rising to his feet. “Imbecile, stupid ignoramus, did you say that you set him free?” Moriarty walks around the table and places a red claw on John's neck. John looks up at him unconcerned.”

“Yes, I let him go. He was still alive. Even so, he was willing to submit to eternal torture just to keep me company. That's true sacrifice. Loving someone more than anything in the world. Sherlock tried to show me again and again, and I was too much of an idiot to see it, until now. So chain me up to that wall. Burn me. Tear me apart, or whatever it is that you plan to do. Sherlock is free, and he can go on to his reward. I hope that it makes him happy.”

John squares his chin and closes his eyes bracing for a blow, so he is surprised when he hears laughter instead. Moriarty is bent over the table laughing hard. He tries to speak twice, but he begins laughing again and has to stop. John stares.

“I should have known. That's what you get when you take a good man into Hell. You won, you bastard. You bloody bastard, you won!”

“I don't understand.”

Moriarty laughs again so hard that he starts coughing. He throws himself down in the chair and puts his red cheek against the table speaking between chuckles. “It's hard, isn't it...to let it all go? Giving away the things that you want most. Giving up Sherlock. It's the reason that you ended up here. You couldn't leave the world behind.”

Moriarty's face turns sad. He brushes his hand through his hair and John can almost see the youth he must have been, thin, depressed, and lonely. He had never felt an ounce of sympathy before for Moriarty. Now he wonders what in his past led him to become who he was in life. He wonders what has led him to be here in death.

Moriarty's voice turns soft and contemplative as he says, “We can't move ahead to other things until we cut the ties that hold us to our old life. Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's hard, so very hard. I'm working to gain my freedom from this place as well. I couldn't do that without giving up Sherlock, but I couldn't just release him. He is too...special… I couldn't just leave him behind. I had to give him up to someone. I chose you as the only person who I could give Sherlock to, and what did you do? You gave him away. You gave him to himself. Oh how I wish he could have been here for a small while, at least. Oh the things that I would do with him, to him. But...you were indeed the better man.”

Moriarty stands again. He pulls on his cuffs straightening his suit. “No...not better. You're just too simple-minded for this place to hold you.”

John smiles and looks at his hands. “Greg Lestrade once told me that Sherlock was a great man, and that one day he might be a good one. He became that good man after I was dead. I selfishly wanted to keep him for myself. But like you said, Hell is not here to give you what you want.”

“No,” Moriarty replies, “but it does give you what you need. You've accepted yourself, John. You know who you are at last. You are no longer a demon, and Hell can no longer hold you.”

“What do you mean, 'Hell can't hold me?'”

“I mean that if you walk out that door, you can go wherever you wish. To Heaven, to Earth, to whatever place you want.”

“Am I...am I free?”

"You were free the moment that you gave up your past.”

“And what about you? You gave up Sherlock. Are you leaving Hell as well?”

Moriarty laughs, “Sherlock Holmes is not the only thing that held me to the world. No, I have quite a way to go before I'll be free of this place.”

John stands. “In that case, I don't want to waste anymore time here. I never thought that I would say this Moriarty, but I wish you well.”

Moriarty lifts one side of his mouth in a half smile. “I never expected a blessing from you, Dr. Watson.”

“Call me John.” John holds out his hand and Moriarty takes it, shaking solemnly.

“I don't suppose that I need ask you where you are going.”

“I think that should be pretty obvious.”

“Would you mind giving Sherlock a message from me?”

“Depends, what message did you want to send him?”

Moriarty squeezes John's hand so hard that he falls to one knee. Then he steps forward and grabs the back of John's neck with his left hand. His claws pinch the side of John's head keeping it still.

A look of shock and horror crosses John's face as he wonders if all of this was simply a vicious trick. His mouth falls open in shock, but it is quickly filled when Moriarty pulls him into a deep tongue-sucking kiss.

John tries to push him away, but Moriarty's other hand flies down to John's crotch and he squeezes. John's legs part involuntarily as he strokes it making it fill with blood despite John's objections.

Pulling out of John's mouth as he tugs slowly on John's cock Moriarty glares his dark eyes down at him, smiling with clenched teeth at John who is paralyzed and unable to move.

“Please give Sherlock a kiss from me, won't you. It's the least that you can do for taking him from me. You get to have him forever. I never get him, so I want you to pity me... a little.”

John sucks in several rapid breaths as Moriarty jerks him off. He struggles, but Moriarty's claws hold him in place.

“He wasn't my equal. He was too soft, but if you hadn't come along there could have been a chance for us. Fate cursed me there. I should have killed him ages ago when we were children.”

Moriarty digs his fingers into his balls, and John comes with a scream, shuddering and shaking as Moriarty holds him close. His come splatters all over his designer suit. His white semen beads on Moriarty's silk tie, like a row of pearl tie pins. John falls back limp, but Moriarty continues to hold him up as he bends over to lick the base of John's neck.

“Sherlock still is alive. He still has blood coursing through his veins." Moriarty's teeth pinch John's neck and he says through clenched teeth, "I HATE YOU for setting him free!" Then he kisses the marked skin and holds John to his chest saying, "I love you for saving me from eternal damnation. Please give Sherlock my love, because now, I won't ever see him again.”

He retracts his claws, and John collapses onto the floor. He looks down expecting to see himself naked with come all over his chest, but he is wearing his jeans and jumper as always. He sits up and climbs to his feet, taking two steps back. Jim Moriarty grins at him, hands behind his back.

“Well,” John says. “One never knows where the universe will bring us. We may meet again.”

“Really?”

“And that time, you'll be the one down on the floor.”

Moriarty chuckles. “John Watson, you are quite the optimist.”

“Goodbye then.”

“Yes, you'd better be off. You don't want to leave Sherlock waiting.”

John looks back once. Then he marches through the door slamming it shut behind him.

 

John finds himself in a bright room with a low ceiling supported on wooden beams. He looks out of a window and spies a colorful Spring garden. In the distance there is a low fence, and beyond it, a large modern beehive. The room is homey and pleasant. Calico wallpaper surrounds a glass fronted cabinet full of knickknacks. The cabinet glass is etched with a honeycomb pattern.

A door opens and John turns back fearing for a second that Moriarty will walk through, but instead someone enters wearing a white beekeeping suit that covers their face entirely. John stares, frozen. Suddenly the hat is thrown down to the floor revealing a head of short white curls.

“John. You're back.”

"I promised I would always return, didn't I?”

“How long do we have this time?”

“As long as we want. I'm done with Hell. I thought that I might stay with you from now on, if you'll have me.”

“Honestly, you're not leaving?”

“I'm not leaving. Not as long as you're alive, and I'm hoping that I can hang around even after that if you like.”

“Yes!” Sherlock says with a smile taking three steps forward to stand before John. He looks down and a tear rolls from his eye.

“Enough of that,” John says. “We won't be sad anymore. Never again.”

“So John, if Hell is out of the picture, where will we go when I die?”

“I hear Nirvana is a nice place. We could lose ourselves there. No reason to limit ourselves if there is more to explore.”

“Nirvana is _'the divine state of existence where one can experience blissful egolessness.'_ I don't know if I can do _egolessness_ , John.”

“We can go somewhere else if you'd like. Perhaps Valhalla. Always wanted to see it, and I hear the wenches are large and fiery.”

“Oh no, we aren't going anywhere with wenches!”

“Then where would you like to go?”

“I don't really care. Hell would be like Heaven as long as I'm with you.” Sherlock puts a hand on either side of John's face as his eyes travel all over him. “I never thought that I would see the blue of your eyes again.”

John smiles placing his arms around Sherlock's suit. He pulls him down capturing his mouth in a kiss as he pushes him to his knees. His tongue invades Sherlock's lips. Then with a flick he sucks Sherlock's tongue into his own mouth grazing it lightly with his teeth and forcing a gasp from Sherlock who falls back onto his heels exclaiming, “My God, John! You still have a bit of the devil in you yet!”

John smiles. “That was for a friend. I haven't given you my welcome yet.”

“A friend?” Sherlock asks.

“An enemy.”

“Oh, which one?”

“We'll discuss it later,” he says falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around Sherlock again as he gives him another more tender kiss.

“We have time. After all, we have the rest of eternity together.”

 

THE END

 


End file.
